Best linux distro for college?

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.

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)..

slackware.

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.

linux blows go BSD

anyone wanna whack this n00b for me

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.

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.

Seablade

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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.

Seablade

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.

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.

Seablade

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)