Cortex M3/M4 with bootloader ROM

[More good advise deleted]

Thanks, but you are preaching to the choir. I begun using Unix on PDP-11's, X on VAX Stations and '386 PCs running Kodak's Unix. ("Interactive Unix", 16 Mbyte RAM all for myself!) First X programming on LynxOs, then VAX-VMS. (Am I the last person left that likes Motif?) First Linux I used was Yggdrasil, with periodic attacks of Debian, Gentoo, RedHat,Suse,Ubuntu,(and NetBSD,FreeBSD,Solaris.) File server runs FreeNAS. And "root" is my middle name... ;)

I was interested in which distributions are preferred by technically-oriented users, which I expect to be more interested in issues such as stability, availability of packages, etc, and less impressed by "eye-candy" modifications.

This is just scientific curiosity - I am not doing any programming (or OS switching) at the time.

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Roberto Waltman 

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Roberto Waltman
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Consider the *BSDs, as well. I've been running NetBSD/FreeBSD since ~'93 (v 0.8) and have been very happy with the lack of "two steps forward, one step sideways and step back" that seems to plague Linux folks.

Of course, I have no need for the bloated "desktops" -- just a good, *lean* window manager and reliable OS beneath it. (Note the BSD's aren't "just a kernel" so you end up with much of what a Linux distro would include *just* by installing the "OS". "Packages" sit on top of that)

But, I only use it for writing applications and OS's (though I do rely on many of the standard services for my infrastructure, here). Any CAD, EDA, DTP, modeling, numerical analysis, etc. work happens on a Windows machine (I doubt the free OS's will

*ever* catch up in terms of quality and choice of offerings).

YMMV. I haven't played with FreeBSD in many years -- it started trending towards the "desktop" market when I left (v2.2?) and I was more interested in "getting work done" than continuing to support an evolution in a direction that didn't serve my needs (I was a frequent FBSD contributor).

Also, I am not keen on wasting my time upgrading OS's and apps (that time comes out of *my* pocket and I'd rather spend any "free time" on stuff that I *want* to do -- not "mowing the digital lawn"). No more so than a carpenter wants to spend his time buying hammers! :-/ So, I will run an OS for many years before deciding that I *should* feel embarassed! :)

Like any tool, I want to be able to use it when I need it and forget about it the rest of the time. E.g., the little box that serves up TFTP, NTP, FTP, HTTP, DNS, fonts, and acts as a lightweight "software development server" (i.e., let me write and compile code -- just no grueling "builds") here has an uptime of about a year now that it's on a *tiny* UPS. Previously, it would "go down" each time I turned off its branch circuit to make wiring changes, etc. (It would have been longer had I not opted to upgrade the OS in it) I don't think the box draws more than 20W so it runs damn near forever on a small UPS! Even a trivial memory leak would surely have panicked that 128MB! (new box will be even leaner and run off "flashlight batteries" :> )

OTOH, if you like playing on the bleeding edge, there are lots of folks intent on mucking around just to "see how THIS works"...

Pick something that suits your needs, offers the reliability you are looking for and the amount of "hassle" you are willing to tolerate. (alternatively, the amount of *chaos* you seek!)

Good Luck!

--don

Reply to
Don Y

Absolutely! I hate it when it thinks it knows more than me, even if it does.

Reply to
John S

I like Xubuntu quite a bit, and run it both at work and home. Ubuntu as an underlying layer brings a lot of advantages, and trading GNOME3+Unity+whateverelse out in favor of the very traditional, clean Xfce is a huge win.

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Rob Gaddi

Oh yes I'm persevering with it. But I got the impression that the OP was asking for advice for a new system, not sure I would recommend it if it is about to turn into Ubuntu Phone OS. :)

But really they are all fine for me, they all run gcc, openocd, emacs, gdb, thunderbird, firefox, VirtualBox etc etc.

And in fact Ubuntu worked great out of the box on the laptop, even all the weird little extra buttons and special function keys. Things that would take a day of ferretting out drivers for a bare-metal windows install.

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John Devereux
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John Devereux

Gentoo? IT techies maybe, but the average user (which could well be an electronics guru but not an IT one) would find annoying spending too much time tweaking it.

For the OP (couldn't find the original post) here are lots of distros to choose from

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My personal choice: Debian, and stay away from *buntu.

Reply to
asdf

Perhaps. I've find that in the long run, maintaining Gentoo systems requires less time/effort than maintining RPM or .deb based distros. It does, however, require a little more knowlege.

But, it probably depends on what you want to do with the computer. If all you want to do is stuff that the distribution bundler's have already thought of and included software for, then I'd probably go with Debian or Xubuntu.

Any time you end up wanting to use software that's not available as part of the basic distro, I've found that maintining rpm/deb based systems tends to balloon into a large, frustrating job.

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Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! ONE LIFE TO LIVE for 
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Grant Edwards

I like the way you think.

Yes!

Again, right-on. I get so tired of the "community" pushing sudo. Just "su -" and git 'er done.

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Randy Yates

What's wrong with sudo -i -H ? ;) (after modifying /etc/sudoers to *not* ask for passwords)

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I've used Suse for years. Works out of the box, has a pro os feel, is well supported and robust. That and a minimum of superfluous decoration on initial install. Suse is quality and just very well sorted, just like an Audi, with no obvious snags,

Also like Debian, which is has support for a wider than average range of architectures including Sun Sparc. Have Debian running on a laptop for remote debugging and on a Sun V240 Sparc system. Consistent and identical install and user experience across both architectures. A bit more work than Suse for admin, but rock solid throughout.

Ubuntu looked like a video game last time I looked at it and Redhat is just hard work :-).

For firewall, pfSense - ime, the best open source firewall around :-)...

Chris

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Embedded System Hardware & Software Engineering 
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Reply to
tridac

I used Gentoo a number of years ago. It was a fun experience, and certainly an educational one - I learned a lot about Linux from installing and tweaking it. But it was not an efficient experience - I spent much longer installing and compiling programs than using them. Perhaps I lack the self-discipline needed to use Gentoo properly - it was too much fun tweaking and re-emerging with different flags instead of just /using/ the system. The Gentoo project is also a source of excellent general Linux information and documentation (like Arch Linux).

I can't quite see how using non-distro software would be easier with Gentoo, however. When you are dealing with source that is not in the repos, you download a tarball and give it the "./configure && make && make install" treatment. That applies for Debian, Redhat and Gentoo. With the more popular distros, you are more likely to find installation guides that match so that you don't need to figure out the details of particular dependency package names. And for non-source programs, it will almost certainly be easier with a distro based on one of the big systems rather than a more niche distro.

Reply to
David Brown

Or "sudo su -", which is my personal favourite sudo command.

Reply to
David Brown

I have tried many distros over the years and I have yet to find one that *doesn't* muck up the partition table even when you install on (and boot load from) already existing partitions. Often, after installation, non-Linux based partitioning software will no longer work on the disk.

George

Reply to
George Neuner

I haven't done it for awhile, but old Fedoras didn't do that.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

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Phil Hobbs

I think you're probably correct that really old versions (circa 1.x kernels) didn't have the problem. But more recent fdisk, parted, etc. allow creating partitions and logical drives that are not cylinder aligned. A lot of non-Linux partitioning software expects cylinder alignment and won't edit - or worse, won't even read - tables that have "illegal" sizes.

I have found that the "easy" GUI installs - which you can count on most people using - very often create non-aligned partitions even when the entire disk is given to Linux. And they all seem to rewrite the partition table even when you tell them to use (and install grub on) already existing partitions. Getting multiple distros - or even multiple versions of the same distro - to coexist on the same disk can be a vexing problem. Getting any distro to coexist with another OS can be extremely difficult if you don't want to use grub to do the boot selection.

Fortunately VMware (at least since v6) seems to be able to run most versions of Linux without difficulty, so I no longer have any pressing need for multi-booting. I mention the problem simply because others may yet want to do it.

YMMV, George

Reply to
George Neuner

Linux has *allowed* that for awhile, but earlier versions of the tools didn't _force_ partition boundaries to be unaligned. The Fedoras I was thinking about would have been about V7, i.e. 2.6ish kernels.

That's assuming that semi-sane versions of Windows continue to be available to host it. Microsoft seems to be hell-bent on killing off Windows, so I think some future-proofing is in order. I've been buying Win7 and XP licenses recently so that I can continue to run my old S/W past next April.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

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Phil Hobbs

On a sunny day (Wed, 09 Oct 2013 00:05:13 +0200) it happened David Brown wrote in :

On the Raspberry Pies I simply changed the /etc/passwd entry for 'pi' so 'pi' has root permissions and shell in /root Never sudo again...

Usually I ssh -Y pi@IP_ADDRESS to those, the default password is still 'raspberry' in there... I develop a lot of stuff compiling and assembling on the Raspberry. It is small, powerful, low power... and very stable. As JTAG programmer:

formatting link
As PIC programmer:
formatting link
As DVB-S transmitter:
formatting link
As satellite tracker:
formatting link

That is for the 'techies' ;-)

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

That is almost true. I had only minor problems installing pure source packages, provided all dependencies were met. The main problem usually is the shortsighted programmer who distributes his/her masterpiece that depends on the very latest, or worse, beta version of everything, which sometimes forces the user to break a package based system.

Reply to
asdf

I can't say I have used any non-Linux partitioning software, other than a plain Windows installer. (I thought most partitioning tools these days, except Windows own tools, used Linux.) But whenever I want to do something complicated with a disk setup, such as raids or LVM, I usually use System Rescue CD to set up the partitions and then boot the distro installation. I haven't had any problems getting the installer to use the existing partitions.

If I want to have several different systems on the same machine, other than a dual-boot Windows/Linux, I usually use either VirtualBox for desktops or openvz for servers. That avoids all partitioning issues. (With openvz I typically have LVM and logical partitions per virtual machine.)

Reply to
David Brown

How far do you predict MS will go to kill off XP?

I started hedging my bets years ago by buying DELL computers. That's mostly what's available in the "free or almost free" box at garage sales. The whole system is WAY cheaper than buying a license.

They self-activate, as do many OEM's. I'm hoping they'll be immune to MS turning off the activation server.

Reply to
mike

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