Ask HN: Best first linux distribution?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1390594

by thomasreggi • 16 years ago

7 8 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I have been working with the command prompt in windows more and more and getting into git, ror, php, mysql ect. I just want to learn programming from all angles and I feel held back on a windows machine. Will it make me more productive or will I see myself screaming to come back to windows? My first and only thought was ubuntu. Whats your linux text editor of choice?

wyattpeak• 16 years ago

Simply moving to Linux isn't liable to significantly help or hinder your programming. These days Linux, provided you choose a distribution with a GUI, is pretty well as comfortable to use as Windows - not quite as refined, but the differences are slight.

There are two real advantages - more command prompt access to applications, which allows you to avoid the mouse and GUI interaction in general, and a better selection of code editors.

vi, one of the more popular text editors, in particular I find speeds up my work, but I strongly advise against asking for the relative merits of different editors - it's a sore point and is liable to start a flame war. The other editor with a significant following is Emacs.

Both of these do have a very steep learning curve, but with the amount of software available these days on linux, if you're having trouble, you can always find something a bit closer to home. For a while while getting used to the system I used Geany, which is more of an IDE than a text editor, and largely defeated the purpose of moving to Ubuntu, but it nevertheless eased the transition.

As indicated, I do suggest Ubuntu, which I think is the best developed and most usable system, not to mention having the largest userbase and hence array of help and software.

You'll find it a bit off-putting for a minute, a number of aspects, particularly installing software, aren't exactly designed for ease of use, but push through. In a week or so you'll be comfortable enough to live with it, and in a month or two you'll be familiar enough to make a sound judgement between the two.

One note - one of the killers which kept me from using Linux for years was the lack of driver support. In particular I could never get my wireless card working, which rendered it a non-starter. This seems to have been cleared up as of ubuntu 9.10, but I'm finding some of the trouble over again with 10.04, the latest release. I don't know if it's hardware-specfic or just an issue with the operating system, since it's still in early days, but try 9.10 if 10.04 doesn't work.

gexla• 16 years ago

I have been exclusively a Linux user for about half of the past four years. I have been moving back and forth between Linux and Windows. Some people really love Linux and use it as a desktop, I just see it as a tool.

Trying something new might be fun at first, but Linux can wear on you after a while. The inability to use your Windows programs, spending hours looking up small issues with the O.S. and other things get old.

After a while I decided that I could care less about using the Linux GUI and I really just wanted a console. This is served fine with virtualization.

My suggestion, install Virtualbox and run Linux as a VM and log into it with a console.

norswap• 16 years ago

I totally second this. As for what is said a little above, both vi and emacs are available on Windows.

MisterWebz• 16 years ago

When i started using Ubuntu a few months ago, it made me feel like i was being more productive, but i was basically wasting a lot of time installing the correct drivers (wireless problems) and fixing other small things. That's why i switched back to Windows. I installed Windows, got excellent wireless connection after one update and the only thing that i needed to do was fire up my text editor and i could start coding again. But if you don't care about ease of use as much as i do, then i don't think you'd regret using Ubuntu.

unperson• 16 years ago

I agree with this, I'm not sure that Linux is ready to beat Widnows for the desktop environment. However, I do prefer the bash shell and highly recommend cygwin (with mintty). To me, this is the best of both worlds.

If you are set to install Linux as your desktop, Ubuntu is as good a choice as any, if only because it is the most popular and thus probably has the largest support base. In reality, the primary difference between the various Linux distros comes down to where things go, how applications are installed/upgraded, default settings and the like, so your first choice shouldn't make much of a difference.

Kototama2• 16 years ago

That's interesting to hear that because when I have to work with Windows I always find myself struggling with the environment: pop-up balloons that distract me from working, mandatory rebooting for installing software and updates, files that can't be deleted while they are used (really painful for log files), a not user-friendly file explorer, and last but not least: a shell that is barely usable (and using Cygwin makes a poor compensation).

CyberFonic• 16 years ago

I certainly can recommend Ubuntu based on my experience. It has worked on virtually every bit of hardware that I've tried it on. You could always run it under VmWare if you want to retain your Windows environment. You might want to consider CygWin as a way of doing *nix on top of Windows. But beware, C/C++ programming under CygWin has some incompatability issues.

Kototama2• 16 years ago

If you work with git, mysql etc. having a proper shell - once you learned how to use it - should make your work easier. Installing software should also be easier with the packages.

I suggest you to try the latest Linux Mint distribution, which is a Linux based on Ubuntu 10.4 and compatible with it. See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1375033

It's a bit more user-friendly that Ubuntu, which is also a good choice, and comes with Flash, mp3 support etc. out of the box.

Ask HN: Best first linux distribution?

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