Best linux distro for college?

[dmb]

Hey, im going to be majoring it computer science and am going to be taking a lot of unix courses. I was wondering what you think the best distro for notebooks in college is. I have been using gentoo, but I am kind of thinking that it might just be a waist of time since everything needsd configuration, and compiling takes a lot of time. Also, wireless isn't so plug n play in gentoo. What would you reccommend? Me personally, im debating between gentoo and ubuntu.

[abf]

seems like you know your way around linux, so grab what you wish, I'd personally recommend NEITHER. go with ARCH.

Ubuntu is fantastic, i love it, and i use it as my main os on my laptops, perfection, the downside is that its i386...aka not optimized so speed lacks. on the upside the community is HUGE, support is HUGE, and packages are PLENTY. Most things are done automatically so you'll save lots of time over manual config / compile in gentoo.

Gentoo...you're running it, you know it can take ages to configure things properly, and if you need a program NOW, well, you cant have it now because some programs take up to a few hours to compile. Gentoo is sweet for the learning curve, it really is the best way to learn the guts of linux, and if correctly done its fast, so worht the price, the question is, are you willing to invest the time and the effort?

So why ARCH anyway?
I find it a happy medium between the 2 distros you listed. Its build in a Slackware-like style where configuration is (for the most part) manual, but much easier than gentoo and what have you. The package manager (pacman) also installs binaries which makes installations faster, and they are i686 + other tweaks ... ie.. Arch is tuned for speed while still be easy to install and maintain. You will need to invest a good day's worth of work to get arch running the way you like it, and there is no automagical program like Automatix available to get you there, but it works, and its fast. The wiki is far from complete, but very usefull still, also the forums and the irc channels are great to get some help.

[dinamic]

i use kubuntu on my notebook.. it's just perfect :)
wifi detection works perfectly, there is so much extras.. automatic updates and so on..
and, as a matter of fact it's free, because it's based on ubuntus core.
abf, while using kubuntu i noticed that with it cmoes with i386 core.. but when i run the package manager there was i686 core, k7 core.. and so on :)
i've also used prefetch, to speed up my kde (kubuntu = ubuntu + kde)..

[buzzedlightyear]

slackware.

[abf]

dynamic, i am aware of the available i686 and k8 and wahtnot packages in the repos, i also know what kubuntu is (used ith, hated it, kde is not my thing), point is though, it really takes the extra effort to go the extra mile to update to a faster optimized kenel and other packages, and since hte mail bulk of hte packages still remains 386, even if the kernel is 686, you'll still encounter issues, and if you use a custom kernel you can't use restricted modules package and thus need to install wifi and graphics drivers manually which is kinda a pain.

between all things, i sitll recommend Arch because its a happy blend between ease of use and speed, and flexibility thanks to its slackware-like design.

[vinny77]

linux blows go BSD

[abf]

linux blows go BSD

anyone wanna whack this n00b for me :gun2:

[BlueTimber]

Ugh, computer science. I was thinking of doing that but all that math make my brain go ouchy. I'll go with the business route, I cannot STAND math. Go you though, you must be a math genious.

[seablade]

CompSci isnt as much math as they make it out to be, it is understanding the math to put it to use into programming that can be difficult.

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PS Nice Smilie ABF

[bigtrouble77]

CompSci isnt as much math as they make it out to be, it is understanding the math to put it to use into programming that can be difficult.

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PS Nice Smilie ABF
It's probably different now, but when I was a freshman in college (1995) it was all math. The first semester we had to take calc, discreet math and a class on algorithms. second semester was purely micro programming and assembly programming. Needless to say, I put up with that for 2 years before I came to my senses and realized that i'm just not good at math.

The difference today is there are so many other routes you can go, like web programming (php, java, javascript, xslt, css etc), that has virtually no math at all and can result in very scuccessful careers.

[Imperil]

Any Computer Science program that is not math heavy is absolute trash and I'd switch schools. The reason for such a focus on math is not only to get an understanding of working in some of the hardest areas, but mostly to build problem solving and reasoning skills (math really is only problem solving). If you are not good at math you won't be good in development. It is a skill that is learned and practiced in order to achieve better results and if you just do enough to get by you won't get better. Some people are inherantly better not because of a math background but because they have much better problem solving skills and can apply that.

Obviously as said above the easy little stuff like web can be done by people without any training at all so I wouldn't worry about math if that is a future career path.

[seablade]

....The reason for such a focus on math is not only to get an understanding of working in some of the hardest areas, but mostly to build problem solving and reasoning skills (math really is only problem solving)....


This is my point. I should have clarified a bit. CompSci as a major concentrates on math, but CompSci as a job does not. CompSci as a job you merely need to understand the math to program it, not perform it yourself. Now if you want really math heavy, you could always do what my wife is, which is essentially getting two math degress(Education and Theory I believe last I asked her) as well as going through a masters program to teach it....

Yea when I get a math question while programming, I ask her;) Sometime I gotta get her to explain Calc to me so I can understand Fourier Analyisis.

Seablade

Who learned before he went to college that CompSci and other Computer fields were really boring, so he went into theater;) Want having to apply math, try being a TD and figuring out rigging loads and tolerances, or struturcal designs. Now do all that with dynamic loads. That is a fair amount of math.

Thankfully I dont do it much. Yea for sound, based in physics, and only having to figure out rigging loads and tolerances for speakers.... oh yea, nevermind.

[bigtrouble77]

Any Computer Science program that is not math heavy is absolute trash and I'd switch schools.
I don't know how schools are organizing majors now, but I've been successful approaching programming from a designers perspective (I graduated with a design degree and a cs minor).

I work closely with another guy that is a hardcore programmer (much more experienced than me) and it's funny how we come to the same end product, but from two paths that are so far apart it's ridiculous. He takes a very annalytical, mathematical approach to his solutions while I tend to solve things less elegently, but but easier to understand. But my solutions, in general, have less far reaching effects on our system and require less maintenance because I don't like having one super complicated template that takes everything into account. This definately has it's disadvantages but there are very clear advantages too, imo. I think our approaches are purely a result of our backgrounds.

In my experience the cs major I went through was very elitest and the prof's really looked down on the students that were not strong in math to the point of not making us welcome. I've definately proven that you can be a successful coder and not be a mathematical genious.

[TekWarren]

I'm a linux n00b to the core but a while back I used Ubuntu and was able to update to the proper kernal to match my processor easy enough. This comment coming from a newb mind you but isn't part of the idea of Linux to be able to configure it to your needs and essentially make it your own OS? I agree I would suck and probably give up if I had configure every little thing...well no I would try first then I would ask for help or consult the might intreweb.

[abf]

nope...the idea of linux is not that at all, although thats where distros like Gentoo take it.....not that its wrong, i actually kinda agree with that logic, if you install only what you need, and nothing you don't you'll get the best performance out of your system.

linux doesn't really even have a point...its just an os...you use it, however you wanna use it.

[seablade]

linux doesn't really even have a point...its just an os...you use it, however you wanna use it.


Actually it is a combination of the two, he was right and so were you.

The idea of linux is that it is customizeable to use however you want. That is why the open source part of that is so important, you can even customize the source to fit your needs.

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[seablade]

BT My experience mirrors yours to a degree. I may DESPISE math, but I am good at it. However that doesnt mean I apply it to all my programming. However one thing I have noticed is I can be fairly flexible, but there is always more than one way to reach a destination. The real catch though comes into having to deal with large scale programs where you are working with many others.

Personally I prefer the human readable, even in code, so that it is easier for everyone to understand my code. There are those that go for the most efficient, and dont care about human readable. It works just fine, but it is harder for others to come in from scratch and start coding on it.

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[abf]

i am not the greatest at math....i get it, but i dont like it. Lets just say I opted out of taking AP Calc senior year of HS. Yet, programing wise (with my limited experience in java) I was still the king of the hill for my java class, although there were some people better than me in math. Yeppie!

As for the human readable...when i code something fast and dirty for myself, it is just that...fast and dirty, FOR ME. When i am working on a project that will involve other people checking / using / editing my code...i try to nice it up a notch.

[seablade]

...well no I would try first then I would ask for help or consult the might intreweb.


By the way I forgot to comment on this. Asking for help is perfectly fine, this forum in particular is great for people getting started in linux, there are a variety of learning resources in a sticky up top, and any specific questions you come across as working feel free to post here and in general you can get some rpetty decent help here.

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[acruxksa]

Slackware for the CS major
Gentoo for the serious CS major (no party time because you are always waiting for your comp to "emerge")
Ubuntu for the less than serious CS major (more time for partying)

[bigtrouble77]

I find it interesting that people think you need to use distros like gentoo and slackware to be an advanced user... You can do serious CS work in Linspire if you choose. (acruxksa, I know your post was tongue-in-cheek)

Gentoo is a great distro to learn some basics on, but it's ill-suited as one's primary desktop machine- it's just too much work to get the things that ubuntu does out of the box. It's really only good for servers and production machines (audio/video workstation, DVR, etc).

The most useful things I learned in gentoo was how grub worked. Previously, whenever the mbr got screwed up i'd have to reformat. Once you get past setting up the default system in gentoo it becomes much less useful as a linux learning tool. You ultimately spend more time learning gentoo centric things. Things like rcupdate and the genkernel will confuse you on other distros.

[Vincent Vega]

I use Fedora Core 5 and FreeBSD 6.1. Doesn't matter how far you go, you'll find a seriously large common denominator between all of them. It's by design

pick one, and if you don't like it, choose another one. you learn when you try for yourself, not when you do what someone else tells you

[abf]

lets make it clear.....bsd is NOT linux. although i have respect for bsd as a server....it lacks serious hardware support to make it in the desktop computing world.

that said, as somebody who tried every distro you ever thought of on distrowatch...i feel i am fairly well qualified to sum things up, and save other members of this forum LOTS of cd-r.

i agree with you totally that you will not know for sure until you find what you like.... but when it comes down to a working distro (ubuntu) vs a buggy distro (mepis) vs a bloated broken distro (suse).....advice can be given....

[aaronjb]

genkernel will confuse you on other distros.

Nobody really uses genkernel, do they? Really? Egads!

[seablade]

Nobody really uses genkernel, do they? Really? Egads!

Actually yes I do. Just because you use the genkernel script doenst mean you still cant get just as much customization out of your kernel. The only real thing it does is make you use an initrd, which half the people would be doing anyways;)

The genkernel scripts accepts flags to allow you to access for example menuconfig etc to custsomize the kernel just the same as normal.

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[abf]

i like genernel --menuconfig as well......

[aaronjb]

Well now I just think I must be missing something ;)

What does genkernel get you that a straight kernel compile doesn't? Perhaps it's evolved since the last time I used it (a long time ago)..

Or does it just make it easier to get the pretty splash screens to work (which I hate, so not having them suited me fine ;)) because it forces you to use an initrd?

[abf]

splashscreens is part of the genkernel equation.....some other mods too

[seablade]

Well now I just think I must be missing something ;)

What does genkernel get you that a straight kernel compile doesn't? Perhaps it's evolved since the last time I used it (a long time ago)..

Or does it just make it easier to get the pretty splash screens to work (which I hate, so not having them suited me fine ;)) because it forces you to use an initrd?


genkernel --oldconfig --menuconfig --bootloader=grub

I BELIEVE that is the command I use, I have to check on the last one due to the fact I dont have it in front of me right now to look up. I also have to confirm the --old-config but I believe that is correct as well, worst case scenario it starts you off with a generic kernel to customize.

What this does is starts you off with either a generic kernel(If old-config doesnt work or doesnt exist) and put you into the menu-config to customize it. Then when you are done customizing, it makes the kernel, installs it, and sets up the initrd for it, as well as configuring grub for all of the above.

Essentially it automates the steps I would take in most of my installs anyways without genkernel.

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EDIT: Did a quick google for this page...
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/genkernel.xml

For whatever reason the bootloader flag isnt on there, but I am certain that one existed(In fact in some old threads you will probably find a copy and paste of the command I used including the bootloader flag on these forums)

[vinny77]

Linus is so weak,

BSD is a monster, it just doesnt baby you like Linux does.

[abf]

you n3wb...did you have to resurect a month old thread?

and linux ftw! ... it has better hardware support...so why not use it :)

[seablade]

Well lets see, firstly what does Linus's strength have to do with how good of an OS it is or BSD being better?

Secondly so far you have either posted incorrect information and accussed others of being stupid, or have given little to back up your position. While I have absolutely no problem with BSD(And actually neither does ABF I dont believe), you might really want to learn how to support your position.

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[seablade]

And thats funny as when I started typing I didnt realise ABF had posted... all the better;)

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PS ABF he ressurected an old thread he had already posted in actually...

[abf]

i have nothing agianst BSD...in fact i am planning to learn it later. I think FreeBSD has a good potential as a server, and PC-BSD is a fantastic..ran it for a little bit. But currently I think linux is best simply because of better hardware support (read:ATI fglrx), a larger community (see ubuntu and gentoo forums) and i personally think linux text commands are easier...

[aaronjb]

Ahh BSD vs. Linux - it's almost as old as the Apple vs. Windows war, or the Amiga vs. Atari war (that one was fun back in the day ;))

We use both extensively at work - our earlier generation products were based on BSD, while our later generation products are based on Linux and Embedded Linux (I was wrong in that other thread - it's a 32Mb flash that's half full, not 64Mb).

ISTR that Linux's IPv6 support is more mature than BSD's now. Other than that the two have borrowed so much from one another - I mean, guess where the Ethernet stack in Linux came from?

Knowledge transfers pretty easily between the two, too - the main thing to remember is where the various file layouts differ, other than that the main commands are the same or at least similar.

If I wanted a server (on vanilla hardware) that I could setup and forget, I'd likely choose BSD.
If I wanted a server on esoteric hardware or with easy IPv6 support I'd go for GNU/Linux with a 2.6 series kernel.
If I wanted a desktop - GNU/Linux, no contest.

[thricemike]

pc-bsd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[thricemike]

http://www.pcbsd.org/

[seablade]

I think AaronJB Tackled it best from what I have seen of those that use both on a regular basis, matches that completely.

The choice of BSD vs Linux on a vanilla server does typically go to BSD. However Linux also has its fair share as well, particularly with the LAMP stack, or setting up beowulf clusters I believe as well.

But on the desktop I gotta agree, Linux is the better choice for most people at the moment unless going with something based off BSD on dedicated hardware it was built for(Aka Mac OS X;)

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[TheFaction]

my question with linux is how many partitions do i need. because i have a dell e1505 with media drirect. also could i boot linux off of my maxtor one touch external?

[vinny77]

Ahh BSD vs. Linux - it's almost as old as the Apple vs. Windows war, or the Amiga vs. Atari war (that one was fun back in the day ;))

We use both extensively at work - our earlier generation products were based on BSD, while our later generation products are based on Linux and Embedded Linux (I was wrong in that other thread - it's a 32Mb flash that's half full, not 64Mb).

ISTR that Linux's IPv6 support is more mature than BSD's now. Other than that the two have borrowed so much from one another - I mean, guess where the Ethernet stack in Linux came from?

Knowledge transfers pretty easily between the two, too - the main thing to remember is where the various file layouts differ, other than that the main commands are the same or at least similar.

If I wanted a server (on vanilla hardware) that I could setup and forget, I'd likely choose BSD.
If I wanted a server on esoteric hardware or with easy IPv6 support I'd go for GNU/Linux with a 2.6 series kernel.
If I wanted a desktop - GNU/Linux, no contest.


Linux does not use BSD stacks, BSD is know for the horrible stacks, which is why there horrible for intensive network situations


Linux has pretty much borrowed from Unix, but there was never a need for vice versa, possibly just the support for Linux binaires, but even then BSD runs then fine.


The whole hardware support this is bogus, whicle yes the support may not be there, anybody with a decent understanding could manipulate any driver for bsd. If you need something why not make it yourself. I did for my ATI vid card on bsd. Its not that hard.


I mean Linux is fine, but your complaint that BSD is harder, proves the fact that Linux babies its users. You should not be using the system if you could not Configure x.org


Im just a huge bsd supporter, and also a supporter of people learning the hard way.


But Il never change, may be stubborn, but Ive always loved and used BSD. Theres a reason why corporations like yahoo, Microsoft and Google use BSD based systems for there Up most Critical tasks.

up most critical means just that.




Solaris is hot shit also.

[vinny77]

my question with linux is how many partitions do i need. because i have a dell e1505 with media drirect. also could i boot linux off of my maxtor one touch external?


yes you can, you just need to mount that usb drive.

for a installed bottable linux you will need the standard bootable partition and a swap partition.

[aaronjb]

I mean Linux is fine, but your complaint that BSD is harder, proves the fact that Linux babies its users. You should not be using the system if you could not Configure x.org

If you could point out where I said that BSD was 'harder', I'd be amazed. I said no such thing - in any way shape or form.

Oh, and I can hand configure X just fine, thanks very much. Now please stop telling me what operating system I am 'allowed' to use. :saywhat:

[vinny77]

If you could point out where I said that BSD was 'harder', I'd be amazed. I said no such thing - in any way shape or form.

Oh, and I can hand configure X just fine, thanks very much. Now please stop telling me what operating system I am 'allowed' to use. :saywhat:



Im talking about the other guy above.

[seablade]

The whole hardware support this is bogus, whicle yes the support may not be there, anybody with a decent understanding could manipulate any driver for bsd. If you need something why not make it yourself. I did for my ATI vid card on bsd. Its not that hard.


And writing the drivers yourself makes BSD better for the average user going to college HOW?

The EXACT same holds true for linux, its just there are many more devices availiable with drivers already written for them.

So in essence you are saying BSD is better because it makes it harder on folks than it needs to be.

In as far as configuring xorg by hand, many of us that give help on these boards can and do when the need arises. Myself, I do, ABF has, BT I am fairly sure has, AaronJB has already commented he has....

Also several of us do a LOT of our configuring in various files by hand. But then again just because an automated process is there doesnt mean we wont use it.

And in as far as the network stack is concerned, the POSIX standard for network IPC is based off the 4.4BSD socket interface. This is easily checkable in any number of programming articles on Linux network communication including the "Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment" book.

SO please learn what you are talking about before you post, wether it be technical details of your OS or if you are going to post someone cant do something, learn wether or not they can first.

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[seablade]

But Il never change, may be stubborn, but Ive always loved and used BSD. Theres a reason why corporations like yahoo, Microsoft and Google use BSD based systems for there Up most Critical tasks.


By the way you are talking different realms. BSD gets used for servers and does that very well, for standard server tasks anyways. However it is not so good at doing the variety of things that linux can do. Audio Editing/Sequencing is one example I can come up with just because that is what I do. Why? Because many programs on linux I use for this and love wont run on BSD and there is no acceptable alternative on BSD. There are other issues as well, this is just an example. BSD is good at what it is known for, servers etc. But in the desktop market it is no better than linux IMO, and generally much worse for the average user. Neither are good for the average user yet, but linux is MUCH closer than BSD.

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[KinzaKracker]

damn i remember when i first took c++ in highschool for college credit, i was staying in japan with my folks on a military base, and my teacher was in germany on another military base, and the damn time zones and delayed responses to questions was terrible enough, and like the tutorials online were for visual, and we had borland, it was hell, i stayed up the first semester then become a teachers aide for the IT department at school, so much easier, besides now i feel it wasn't that bad a decisions as i think c++is slowly dying off, and web based languages are gonna take over, or possible ajax?

[seablade]

Heh you overestimate web based languages.

C/C++ is still extremely popular for anytihng that is processor instensive, this means games, multimedia editing, webserver applications(Not client side, such as Apache, MySQL, etc). These are things that due to lag over the internet you wont see a web based version of for QUITE some time.

Aside from that the Web based applications are just now in their test phase, personally I avoid them, I find doing things like Word Processing, Email, etc easier on my own computer than over the internet thus far, especially as I am not always connected to the internet since I travel a fair amount.

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[aaronjb]

There's absolutely no money in web based languages in the UK these days - and I expect the rest of the world to follow, essentially because any monkey can hack together PHP code (no offence to any fellow PHP monkeys here ;))

There's still money in Java, largely because it has a fair userbase, and there's still money in Perl if you can find someone using it. Both are not easy languages to master properly.

C & C++ will be around for many many years I think, and the money is in those languages - increasingly in Embedded applications, however, which is quite a narrow market sector.

The above certainly holds true in the UK - I'm led to believe there is still money in webdev in the US, however.

awk FTW, I say..

[seablade]

HehHeh awk...

Now THAT is something i havent touched.

Its surprising web development is dead in the UK, then again a quick search online will show you that most of the cheapest web development comes from third world countries, for good or for bad. The US still has some, and in particular larger companies tend to hire on web developers to maintain their sites. But I left that field along with all of computers some time ago so I havent kept up with it, its very possible my outside view is completely off nowadays.

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[aaronjb]

Yep - it's all pretty much outsourced over here, and they'll work for $5/hr or so, which prices locals right out of the water really..

Incidentally - when you moved away from IT, what did you move into? Just being nosy :)

[seablade]

Sound;)

Specificly Theater Sound Design for the most part, though I also do concert engineering and some other assorted things. Hoping to break into video games of film sometime.

Talk about a step down in pay....

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[aaronjb]

Cool - and undoubtedly more fun than IT :)

The pay is the one thing that keeps me in IT, unfortunately :(

[seablade]

Oh I understand completely, I am currently working at Opera at a job that is kinda a hybrid betwene IT administration and Sound for the simple reason of, it is the first job in a while I havent had to wonder where I was paying the next bill from for myself and my wife....

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[aaronjb]

Aye - sadly I don't have the luxury (so to speak!) of taking a financial hit at the moment..

My own doing, though - I spent the past couple of years (up to October last year) working for myself.. mostly wondering where the next cheque was coming from, as you say.. which wiped out my savings and left me with a nice large chunk of debt (to the tune of, oh, $50k or so).

So now I'm back as a wage slave for the forseeable, until that gets worked off - five years from January just gone, is the plan. It's a hard road with a lot of extremely tight financial planning - fortunately still with enough wiggle room in the budget for the odd treat (like the laptop!) once in a while (yearly, I suspect).

[xccess21]

anyone wanna whack this n00b for me :gun2:
Sorry, but I have to agree with him :) 10+ as unix SA for most flavor, I found that Linux talked alot but still have not get their crap together. there are ton of different linux distro, everyone try to be different, in the end it still going back the same kernel base. BSD keep thing simple and work

[seablade]

I found that Linux talked alot but still have not get their crap together. there are ton of different linux distro, everyone try to be different, in the end it still going back the same kernel base. BSD keep thing simple and work


Thank you for at least explaning your opinion on it.

Then again your opinion is exactly why I find linux so strong, is its flexibility and the fact that it is easily customizeable. I can see how that is not for everyone, but in which case that is why I tend to suggest Ubuntu as a 'standard' linux distro to most people as it does keep most things simple by handling hardware installs for you most of the time, and a variety of other things.

Then again I still think Mac OS X for most people is probably the better *nix based desktop for most people switching from windows as it takes keeping it simple to the extreme, and writes its installers etc specificly for certain hardware it knows it will get, resulting in a very simple but working configuration with almost no work at all.

Linux I find to be at its strongest when you know what you want it to do, configure it strictly for that purpose and go with it. So for example I have my audio workstation set up on linux for this very reason, it boots ready for realtime audio work, I am soon going to have it autolaunch Ardour most likely and have Jack running in the background from startup to even further simplify this process. Means that within a minute from pressing my power button I can start recording multitrack audio with no problem, or start editing an existing session, etc.

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[seablade]

My own doing, though - I spent the past couple of years (up to October last year) working for myself.. mostly wondering where the next cheque was coming from, as you say.. which wiped out my savings and left me with a nice large chunk of debt (to the tune of, oh, $50k or so).


Yea know the feeling, I actually went back to school(Which I am currently in my 5th year of at this institution) at a school that actually doesnt have an audio program, go figure;) But it has one of the better regarded Theatrical programs, and they highly reccomend me for audio work wherever because of my previous knowledge of engineering, so it evens out in my case, most people it probably wouldnt so much. The college and the referrals I have gotten from Faculty there are the reason I could get the job I currently have.

The other reason was my now wife going to college to teach, went to that one;) Kinda narrows the possibilites.

But even working as much as I do while at college, I am expecting to be in a very similar situation when I get out, unfortuantly unlike you my wife will be making the more money between the two of us, and she is planning on teaching High School, if that gives you any clue how poor I am expecting to be;)

Thankfully the debt will be shared for both of us, not just on my side, so that will help some, most of my income will probably be going straight to paying off college loans.

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[bigtrouble77]

I am currently working at Opera
As in the web browser?

[seablade]

As in the live performance situation with a little acting, a fair amount of singing, and a LOT of vibrato.

Ok so to be honest where I am working now the vibrato isnt so bad, and there are some decent actors, just some really questionable ones at the same time as well;)

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