Cross posting to sci.electronics.design
What linux distros do techies like?
R.
Roberto Waltman wrote:
Being a vanilla sort of guy, I mostly use CentOS 6. I'm more of a KDE fan, though, so there are occasional curiosities that I haven't invested the time in fixing--for instance, clicking on a link in kmail doesn't open it correctly in Firefox.
I have an old P4 box that's running Kubuntu. The main thing I disliked about Ubuntu when I used it last is that it doesn't play nicely with the other children--if I set up disk partitions on cylinder boundaries for other OSes, and tell it to use the existing partitions, it nevertheless insists on futzing with the partition table to save a quarter of a cylinder. I like computers that do as they're bloody well told.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
-- Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 160 North State Road #203 Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 USA +1 845 480 2058 hobbs at electrooptical dot net http://electrooptical.net
Debian on my main machine (since 1999 or so).
kubuntu on my laptop, but I don't really like the way Ubuntu is going either...
-- John Devereux
Genoo.
-- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! ... If I had heart at failure right now, gmail.com I couldn't be a more fortunate man!!
It's like the weather. Wait and it will be all different anyway. Just pick the one with the least overlap between what you need and what's busted.
If you're experienced with Ubuntu and like the way it works, why change anything at all? Don't fix it if it ain't broke.
On a sunny day (Tue, 08 Oct 2013 09:32:46 -0400) it happened Roberto Waltman wrote in :
Not sure there is such thing as a 'techie'. I started with Linux in 1998 with SLS Linux, (Soft Landing Systems). that no longer exists. Then Slackware, was enlighting, as it had a documentation on a techie level I could read and understand.
Then tried RatHead, that sucks, they are in if for the money and use incompatibility (at that time libc) as 'customer binding'. Then Suse, that was nice until 7.6 ?? or something until it got bought out and taken over and went RatHead's way. Then I used grml
So, anyways, Debian is the only distro I have ever financially supported, and maybe the cleanest most stable and best maintained. Canonical is in it for the dollars so do not know where that goes, but to start on new hardware it is cool, as everything works, they have decent support.
A 'techie' will likely run wine emulator and LTspice... some more programs that need windows emulator.
So maybe stick with some form of Debian for now? Buy a good book on Unix, get to learn the commands, the file structure, the X server, do not get fooled by all that mousing that is done in window managers to copy-cat sort of a MS desktop. Imitating idiots does not bring you anything useful. The command line, scripting, xterm is the user interface. Do not be afraid to be root, just think before you hit enter.... I once dropped a full harddisk, oh well. gone... So make backups, then if you screw up simply restore everything, get your work back from your backups and be happy.
Always a risk - you are going to get some very non-technical replies from there!
I use Ubuntu a little a number of years ago, but I also didn't like some of Canonical's moves (or Unity), so I quickly dropped it.
Mostly I use Mint on desktops and laptops, which gives you most of the advantages of Debian and Ubuntu (i.e., compatibility with these systems) without the disadvantages of Ubuntu (no secret deals sending your data to Amazon, no "we know best and you don't need to know" attitude to development), along with easy support for useful stuff that Debian doesn't like (such "evils" as binary graphics drivers or media codecs).
I have Fedora on my wok PC, but it is getting out of date - and I think I will move it over to Mint rather than update the Fedora.
For servers or other small or headless systems, I use Debian stable. This is perhaps a matter of habit - I have used it on servers for over ten years. But I've seen no reason to change that habit.
For a workstation, there are a few things to consider. One of them is compatibility with software and guides. Typically, binary-only software is either in "rpm" format for Redhat-style systems, "deb" format for Ubuntu-style systems (being more popular than the parent Debian distro), or system-independent binaries. The same applies to recipes and guides. Usually it is possible to get everything working on alternative systems, but you may need to do some "translation" of things like additional packages to be installed. So if you know up-front that you want to run software with particular requirements, that will make your choice easier. If you want to run FPGA design tools, then Redhat systems (such as RHEL, Scientific Linux, CentOS, and perhaps Fedora) will be easiest. If you want to build embedded Linux systems, then most recipes are given for Ubuntu and related distros.
For some software there is /no/ good distribution. If you want to build Android for embedded systems, then you can't do it using a modern distribution - the requirements are so weird and specific, such as requiring an old version of make and particular versions of Java that are no longer distributed by Oracle (but available on the net, of course). I find VirtualBox comes in very handy for such cases.
If you've got the time, you can try out different systems - there is no monetary cost (except for things like RHEL where you pay for the support and services - if you need these, then RHEL will be good value for money).
Mostly CentOS 6 but I have Linux Mint on my laptop. Mint is Ubuntu with the traditional desktop.
-- Chisolm Republic of Texas
[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.
-- Roberto Waltman [ Please reply to the group, return address is invalid ]
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
Absolutely! I hate it when it thinks it knows more than me, even if it does.
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.
-- Rob Gaddi, Highland Technology -- www.highlandtechnology.com Email address domain is currently out of order. See above to fix.
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.
-- 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
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.
--
Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! ONE LIFE TO LIVE for
at ALL MY CHILDREN in ANOTHER
gmail.com WORLD all THE DAYS OF
OUR LIVES.
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.
-- Randy Yates Digital Signal Labs http://www.digitalsignallabs.com
What's wrong with sudo -i -H ? ;) (after modifying /etc/sudoers to *not* ask for passwords)
-- Roberto Waltman [ Please reply to the group, return address is invalid ]
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
-- Embedded System Hardware & Software Engineering Oxford England 44 (0)1865 437 787 ** Remove the meaning of life to reply...
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.
Or "sudo su -", which is my personal favourite sudo command.
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