Using Which Version of Linux

[blah]

ok, i m going to use Linux for my Python Programs, mainly because i
need to see what will these fork() and exec() do. So, can anyone tell
me which flavour of linux i should use, some say that Debian is more
programmer friendly, or shold i use fedora, or Solaris. Because these
three are the only ones i know of that are popular and free.

 

[bonono]

They are all the same as you don't have specific requirements
mentioned. Based on the way you ask, I would say some debian derivative
like ubuntu. debian is not programmer friendly but admin friendly I
would say. In general programmer friendly distro to me would mean
install everything one can possiblity think of by default so everything
is at hand for use.

Never tried the new solaris so I have no idea but I had some problem
when installed their old x86 a few years back however things may have
changed a lot.

I tried briefly with fedora but its packaging system is not up to par,
comparing with debian. However, you get newer things in fedora, in
general. Fedora has the advantage that it works better with commercial
stuff like Oracle/Sybase. I had problem making Sybase installed under
debian(the reason why I tried fedora).

 

[Maciej Dziardziel]

ok, i m going to use Linux for my Python Programs, mainly because i
need to see what will these fork() and exec() do. So, can anyone tell
me which flavour of linux i should use, some say that Debian is more
programmer friendly, or shold i use fedora, or Solaris. Because these
three are the only ones i know of that are popular and free.

A standard answer is - use that one, which is known to your friends, so they
can help you. Actually all Linux distros come with python and huge amount
of additional modules, so choose any. Fedora, Mandrake, Suse and Ubuntu
willi be easier for begginers, as they are targeted on inexperienced Linux
users (what doesn't mean they cannot be used by experienced),
Debian requires some knowledge (well, way more then other distros) but i
like it for its clarity, wonderful package manager apt and control i have
over it, it is also well documented and popular. I suggest first use
Knoppix - Debian based distro, that boots from cd, doesn't require
installation and contains tons of software, including python of course.
Solaris is a different os, has nothing to do with Linux.

--
Maciej "Fiedzia" Dziardziel (fiedzia (at) fiedzia (dot) prv (dot) pl)
www.fiedzia.prv.pl

It is my fondest hope that you are reading these while you should be
working. Isn't that what the net's really about anyways? Sort of a place
to go 'researching' while you should be getting stuff done!

 

[Mike Meyer]

ok, i m going to use Linux for my Python Programs, mainly because i
need to see what will these fork() and exec() do. So, can anyone tell
me which flavour of linux i should use, some say that Debian is more
programmer friendly, or shold i use fedora, or Solaris. Because these
three are the only ones i know of that are popular and free.

You seem a bit confused. Solaris isn't a Linux distribution, it's
(System V) Unix. Linux isn't Unix - it's a Unix look-like. *BSD is
Unix, but they can't call it that for licensing reasons.

"Programmer-friendly" is pretty vague. Gentoo is the only Linux distro
I've run into (which excludes a *lot* of Unix distros) that I'd
consider programmer friendly, because it doesn't split packages up
into "user stuff" and "developer stuff". That means you have to
install two packages instead of one if you want to build things
against that software. On the other hand, it uses it's own "package"
manager - emerge - so you can't take advantage of rpms/debs from other
systems (or you couldn't last time I looked into it). It also installs
the least amount of "bundled" software, which I consider a programmer
friendly behavior.

Personally, I run FreeBSD - and I like gentoo because it has a lot in
common with a BSD distribution. FreeBSD is the most popular of the
BSDs. BSDs differ from Linuxen in that a BSD distribution is an
integrated whole - the kernel and userland are maintained by the same
group, in the same repository. So the number of BSD kernels to choose
from is much greater than the number of Linux kernels, but the number
of BSD distributions is much fewer.

<mike

 

[Jeffrey Schwab]

ok, i m going to use Linux for my Python Programs, mainly because i
need to see what will these fork() and exec() do. So, can anyone tell
me which flavour of linux i should use, some say that Debian is more
programmer friendly, or shold i use fedora, or Solaris. Because these
three are the only ones i know of that are popular and free.

Solaris isn't Linux, but it is good. I've never installed it from
scratch, though.

I might get lambasted for suggesting this, but try Slackware. It will
let you do a very minimal installation, which means there's less stuff
that can go wrong. It also has nice, beginner-friendly FAQs to help you
get started. Like the other distros already suggested, it comes with
the graphical desktop environments Gnome and KDE, too.

If at all possible, have another computer available with a working
internet connection and a floppy disc drive or CD burner.

Like Maciej said, if you have a buddy nearby who is already an expert on
a particular distro, try that distro. This is especially true for
distros like Gentoo that have... their own way of doing things.

 

[Terrance N. Phillip]

I might get lambasted for suggesting this, but try Slackware. It will
let you do a very minimal installation, which means there's less stuff
that can go wrong. It also has nice, beginner-friendly FAQs to help you
get started. Like the other distros already suggested, it comes with
the graphical desktop environments Gnome and KDE, too.

What I like about Slackware/python is that you get the full python
distribution. My last experience with Debian & subordinates was that
only the "core" python was included with the distribution, and a bit of
hunting was required to get Tkinter working. Maybe this has improved in
the last year or two?

Nick

 

[Dan M]

ok, i m going to use Linux for my Python Programs, mainly because i
need to see what will these fork() and exec() do. So, can anyone tell
me which flavour of linux i should use, some say that Debian is more
programmer friendly, or shold i use fedora, or Solaris. Because these
three are the only ones i know of that are popular and free.

Personally I would recommend staying away from Fedora unless you have a
friend who is well-versed in it and willing to help. I like the
distributin ok (I run it on the laptop I'm writing this from) but it uses
RPMs for package distribution, and the rpm tools don't know how to
automatically downloaded dependencies like yum or apt do. Because of that
I have to say that the RPM package tools suck quite badly.

Debian and SUSE are both pretty good choices.

 

[D.Hering]

And for complete control and customization of your os and hardware...
There's nothing like Gentoo!

 

[Michael Schneider]

I have been away from unix/linux for a couple of years.

I went with SUSE. Just do an install all, and 10 gig later you
are done.

Very simple install, very easy admin with YAST.

If you are a power admin, there may be better release. But if you want
simple, but powerful, SUSE has worked well for me.

Good Luck,
Mike

 

[qwweeeit]

Hi Michael,
I too use SUSE (9.3). The Novell operation has convinced me to
go back to SUSE, after some trials with Mandrake and Ubuntu.
Especially on the Python side all is ready up. But I will not go
into the complications of "fork" and "thread" programming...
Bye.

 

[malv]

ok, i m going to use Linux for my Python Programs, mainly because i
need to see what will these fork() and exec() do. So, can anyone tell
me which flavour of linux i should use, some say that Debian is more
programmer friendly, or shold i use fedora, or Solaris. Because these
three are the only ones i know of that are popular and free.

You have to look out for the version of Python the distro comes with
2.4. Some don't and it may be nasty having to deal with different
versions installed next to one another. (You will probably not be able
to safely remove the original version as the distro uses it for many
things.)

Another point to watch for is things like Python bindings and easyness
of gui (free) installation. FWIW, I like Suse10.0 (Novell). It has
kde-Python bindings to Qt installed. It also has eric3 available. So
without any additional cost or trouble, you'll have a powerful, dream
developer's system.
malv

 

[Norman Silverstone]

ok, i m going to use Linux for my Python Programs, mainly because i
need to see what will these fork() and exec() do. So, can anyone tell
me which flavour of linux i should use, some say that Debian is more
programmer friendly, or shold i use fedora, or Solaris. Because these
three are the only ones i know of that are popular and free.

I use the latest version of Ubuntu and find it very good in all respects.
It's free and regularly maintained.

Norman

 

[Rod Haper]

Personally I would recommend staying away from Fedora unless you have a
friend who is well-versed in it and willing to help. I like the
distributin ok (I run it on the laptop I'm writing this from) but it uses
RPMs for package distribution, and the rpm tools don't know how to
automatically downloaded dependencies like yum or apt do. Because of that
I have to say that the RPM package tools suck quite badly.

Dan,

I don't know what version of Fedora you are running but FC4 and FC3 use
yum for updating.

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

ok, i m going to use Linux for my Python Programs, mainly because i
need to see what will these fork() and exec() do. So, can anyone tell
me which flavour of linux i should use, some say that Debian is more
programmer friendly, or shold i use fedora, or Solaris. Because these
three are the only ones i know of that are popular and free.

Solaris is not Linux, although both are like Unix.

In my opinion, Debian is not newbie friendly.

In my experience, Ubunto is HUGELY over rated. The installation was easy,
the user experience was like being poked in the eye with a blunt stick.

In my experience, Fedora is very newbie friendly, as well as being quite
powerful for non-newbies. If you are in Australia or the USA, and start
looking for commercial support, you'll have less grief if you use Fedora
than most other distros. Although it has to be said, multimedia support is
rather lacking due to licencing issues. (And, in fairness, multimedia
support is still Linux's biggest weakness compared to OS X and Windows.)

I hear that Mandrake and SuSE are very popular in Europe.

If you don't mind really horrible German industrial industrial punk themed
desktops, you could do a lot worse than play around with the Knoppix
LiveCD. That would be the quickest way to get started: no installation
necessary.

 

[Grant Edwards]

"Programmer-friendly" is pretty vague. Gentoo is the only Linux distro
I've run into (which excludes a *lot* of Unix distros) that I'd
consider programmer friendly, because it doesn't split packages up
into "user stuff" and "developer stuff". That means you have to
install two packages instead of one if you want to build things
against that software. On the other hand, it uses it's own "package"
manager - emerge - so you can't take advantage of rpms/debs from other
systems (or you couldn't last time I looked into it). It also installs
the least amount of "bundled" software, which I consider a programmer
friendly behavior.

I just switched one of my computers to gentoo, and I like it a
lot. It's very no-nonsense, but there are alot of available
packages and everything (so far) just works. However, it's not
for the impatient (or at least not for the poor and impatient).
Since it compiles packages from source, a full-featured desktop
install on a slow machine can take days to finish.

 

[Grant Edwards]

Personally I would recommend staying away from Fedora unless you have a
friend who is well-versed in it and willing to help. I like the
distributin ok (I run it on the laptop I'm writing this from) but it uses
RPMs for package distribution, and the rpm tools don't know how to
automatically downloaded dependencies like yum or apt do.

Nonsense. You're comparing apples to oranges. If you want to
compare rpm with something it would be dpkg. If you want to
talk about yum or apt, then you should be comparing them to
something like urpmi. If you tell it to install package X, it
will analyze prerequisites, and then download and install
everything required. It works almost exactly like apt-get
does. Urpmi is text-mode, but there are also GUI front-ends
that do the same thing.

Because of that I have to say that the RPM package tools suck
quite badly.

You'd say the same think about Debian if all you had ever used
was dpgk, and I dare you to try to do anything with dselect.

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

Solaris isn't Linux, but it is good. I've never installed it from
scratch, though.

I might get lambasted for suggesting this, but try Slackware.

If only you knew how hard I had to work to overcome the bad impression
Slackware makes on first-time Linux users.

It will
let you do a very minimal installation, which means there's less stuff
that can go wrong.

And less stuff that can go right, because it just isn't there. There is
something sort of sad about watching an experienced Linux guru trying to
get things done on Slackware, especially when the purist set it up with
FVWM2 as the window manager. It is kind of like going back in time to 1980...

It also has nice, beginner-friendly FAQs to help you
get started.

Just so you understand what Jeffrey is talking about, by
"beginner-friendly" he means the FAQs walk you through the process of
compiling your own kernel. (Okay, okay, so that's a *tiny* bit of an
exaggeration... but not much. Slackware isn't quite Gentoo *wink*)

 

[Mike Meyer]

I just switched one of my computers to gentoo, and I like it a
lot. It's very no-nonsense, but there are alot of available
packages and everything (so far) just works. However, it's not
for the impatient (or at least not for the poor and impatient).
Since it compiles packages from source, a full-featured desktop
install on a slow machine can take days to finish.

This is one of the things I love about the *BSD systems. The package
system is "two-headed". You an do pkg_add, and it'll act like yum or
apt-get, and install binaries for the package and all the
requirements for it. Or you can cd to /usr/ports/category/pkg-name
and do "make install", and it will download, compile and install all
the required software and the port you're building (I do that to
change the isntalltion prefix on the packages). If you want to create
customized packages, you just do "make package". I found creating a
port (and hence package) to be much easier than creating a .deb or
..rpm, but that may just be me. For real control, you can install the
portupgrade package.

That said, the author of the BSD ports system thinks the architecture
is wrong. It handles the building, installation, fetching and
requirements all by itself. He thinks the yum/apt-get approach, where
one tool handles package installation duties, and another deals with
requirements fetching is much saner.

<mike

 

[Steve Holden]

Personally I would recommend staying away from Fedora unless you have a
friend who is well-versed in it and willing to help. I like the
distributin ok (I run it on the laptop I'm writing this from) but it uses
RPMs for package distribution, and the rpm tools don't know how to
automatically downloaded dependencies like yum or apt do. Because of that
I have to say that the RPM package tools suck quite badly.

Debian and SUSE are both pretty good choices.

I used yum on Fedora Core 2, and it downloaded and installed
dependencies fine.

regards
Steve

 

[Max]

ok, i m going to use Linux for my Python Programs, mainly because i
need to see what will these fork() and exec() do. So, can anyone tell
me which flavour of linux i should use, some say that Debian is more
programmer friendly, or shold i use fedora, or Solaris. Because these
three are the only ones i know of that are popular and free.

Ubuntu comes with lots of Python stuff (Mark Shuttleworth, its sponsor,
really loves Python - he gave me quite a lot of money for using it). For
example, it's comes with Python scripting for the GIMP.

It uses DEB packages, which are apparently better, but software (I find)
is much easier to find in RPM format. Also, it tries to emulate a
Windows-style file hierarchy. This is very irritating because:

a) Windows-style file hierarchy is ugly and stupid, and certainly not
worth emulating
b) it is emulated badly.

However, this is only apparent to the user. For the programmer, it is
pure unix. (But it does its mounts in /media instead of /mnt)