Driver to drive?

[John Devereux]

Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.com> writes:

Cross posting to sci.electronics.design

What linux distros do techies like?

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

 

[mike]

On 10/8/2013 7:00 AM, John Devereux wrote:

Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.com> writes:

Cross posting to sci.electronics.design

What linux distros do techies like?


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...

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.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Tue, 08 Oct 2013 09:32:46 -0400) it happened Roberto Waltman
<usenet@rwaltman.com> wrote in <v52859h5kcsqa3c466jebec7mbsdp2flc7@4ax.com>:

Cross posting to sci.electronics.design

What linux distros do techies like?

R.

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 (www.grml.org) as it was simple and worked, but last time I looked it changed into some live CD that you cannot install.
Then I went Debian (and grml is Debian based so not any big surprises and changes), and still use that.
The Ubuntu you mention is also Debian based, I have it on a PC and a laptop.
On the same PC and laptop I run now by default (multi boot) Slackware.
I do not recommend Slackware as it has its own quirks, not all soft has been ported, and updates are sometimes very hard to do even if you have a lot of experience,
and the 32 / 64 bit problems come into play too.
but I use it every day, call me die-hard.
Then there are my Raspberry Pis that run Debian on ARM processor, and are a pleasure to 'upgrade',
everything works, but that is also due to the good work of the Raspberry foundation?

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.

 

[asdf]

On Tue, 08 Oct 2013 14:09:06 +0000, Grant Edwards wrote:

On 2013-10-08, Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.com> wrote:
Cross posting to sci.electronics.design

What linux distros do techies like?

Genoo.

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 http://distrowatch.com/
My personal choice: Debian, and stay away from *buntu.

 

[David Brown]

On 08/10/13 15:32, Roberto Waltman wrote:

Cross posting to sci.electronics.design

Always a risk - you are going to get some very non-technical replies
from there!

What linux distros do techies like?

R.


Roberto Waltman wrote:
David Brown wrote:
... I use Linux for most of my work and play.

Just curious - Which Linux distribution do you use?

I used Ubuntu for several years, but I'm not sure I want to follow
Canonical in whatever path they want to take it.

Thinking of switching to Scientific Linux (Fedora) when I get back to
"work and play." (Crunchbang Linux is also in the run.)

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).

 

[Joe Chisolm]

On Tue, 08 Oct 2013 09:32:46 -0400, Roberto Waltman wrote:

Cross posting to sci.electronics.design

What linux distros do techies like?

R.


Roberto Waltman wrote:
David Brown wrote:
... I use Linux for most of my work and play.

Just curious - Which Linux distribution do you use?

I used Ubuntu for several years, but I'm not sure I want to follow
Canonical in whatever path they want to take it.

Thinking of switching to Scientific Linux (Fedora) when I get back to
"work and play." (Crunchbang Linux is also in the run.)

Mostly CentOS 6 but I have Linux Mint on my laptop. Mint is Ubuntu
with the traditional desktop.

--
Chisolm
Republic of Texas

 

[Grant Edwards]

On 2013-10-08, asdf <asdf@nospam.com> wrote:

On Tue, 08 Oct 2013 14:09:06 +0000, Grant Edwards wrote:

On 2013-10-08, Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.com> wrote:
Cross posting to sci.electronics.design

What linux distros do techies like?

Genoo.

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.

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.

 

[Roberto Waltman]

Jan Panteltje wrote:
>Buy a good book on Unix, get to learn the commands, the file structure, the X server...

[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 ]

 

[Don Y]

Hi Roberto,

On 10/8/2013 6:32 AM, Roberto Waltman wrote:

Cross posting to sci.electronics.design

What linux distros do techies like?

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

 

[John S]

On 10/8/2013 8:41 AM, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 10/8/2013 9:32 AM, Roberto Waltman wrote:
Cross posting to sci.electronics.design

What linux distros do techies like?

R.


Roberto Waltman wrote:
David Brown wrote:
... I use Linux for most of my work and play.

Just curious - Which Linux distribution do you use?

I used Ubuntu for several years, but I'm not sure I want to follow
Canonical in whatever path they want to take it.

Thinking of switching to Scientific Linux (Fedora) when I get back to
"work and play." (Crunchbang Linux is also in the run.)

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.

Absolutely! I hate it when it thinks it knows more than me, even if it does.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

 

[Rob Gaddi]

On Tue, 08 Oct 2013 09:32:46 -0400
Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.com> wrote:

Cross posting to sci.electronics.design

What linux distros do techies like?

R.


Roberto Waltman wrote:
David Brown wrote:
... I use Linux for most of my work and play.

Just curious - Which Linux distribution do you use?

I used Ubuntu for several years, but I'm not sure I want to follow
Canonical in whatever path they want to take it.

Thinking of switching to Scientific Linux (Fedora) when I get back to
"work and play." (Crunchbang Linux is also in the run.)

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.

 

[John Devereux]

mike <ham789@netzero.net> writes:

On 10/8/2013 7:00 AM, John Devereux wrote:
Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.com> writes:

Cross posting to sci.electronics.design

What linux distros do techies like?


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...


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.

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

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Wednesday, 9 October 2013 08:50:41 UTC+11, tridac wrote:

On 10/08/13 13:32, Roberto Waltman wrote:

Cross posting to sci.electronics.design

What linux distros do techies like?

Roberto Waltman wrote:

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,

Me too. I tried Mandrake (now Mandriva) for a while in the late 1990's, but went back to SuSE when their installer got to be easy to use.

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.

I was told that I ought to have gone for Debian, again more than a decade ago, before Ubuntu made it accessible, but the advice came from a programmer, rather than a techie.

Ubuntu looked like a video game last time I looked at it and Redhat is
just hard work .

<snipped stuff that didn't mean much to me>

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Randy Yates]

To the OP: I'm a fedora guy for going on 8 years now.

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> writes:

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.

I like the way you think.

> The command line, scripting, xterm is the user interface.

Yes!

> Do not be afraid to be root, just think before you hit enter....

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

 

[Roberto Waltman]

Randy Yates wrote:

Do not be afraid to be root, just think before you hit enter....

Again, right-on. I get so tired of the "community" pushing sudo. Just
"su -" and git 'er done.

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 ]

 

[tridac]

On 10/08/13 13:32, Roberto Waltman wrote:

Cross posting to sci.electronics.design

What linux distros do techies like?

R.


Roberto Waltman wrote:

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...

 

[David Brown]

On 08/10/13 20:49, Grant Edwards wrote:

On 2013-10-08, asdf <asdf@nospam.com> wrote:
On Tue, 08 Oct 2013 14:09:06 +0000, Grant Edwards wrote:

On 2013-10-08, Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.com> wrote:
Cross posting to sci.electronics.design

What linux distros do techies like?

Genoo.

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.

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.

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.

 

[David Brown]

On 08/10/13 23:28, Roberto Waltman wrote:

Randy Yates wrote:
Do not be afraid to be root, just think before you hit enter....

Again, right-on. I get so tired of the "community" pushing sudo. Just
"su -" and git 'er done.

What's wrong with sudo -i -H ?
(after modifying /etc/sudoers to *not* ask for passwords)

Or "sudo su -", which is my personal favourite sudo command.

 

[Greegor]

On Tue, 08 Oct 2013 09:41:15 -0400, Phil Hobbs wrote:

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.

George Neuner wrote

I have tried many distros over the years
and I have yet to find one that *doesn't*
muck up the partition table even when
you install on (and boot load from)
already existing partitions. Often,
after installation, non-Linux based
partitioning software will no longer
work on the disk.

That's a very fatal kind of mishap isn't it?
Under what conditions does it muck up
the partition table and do you have any
clue as to WHY?

 

[George Neuner]

On Tue, 08 Oct 2013 09:41:15 -0400, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

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.

I have tried many distros over the years and I have yet to find one
that *doesn't* muck up the partition table even when you install on
(and boot load from) already existing partitions. Often, after
installation, non-Linux based partitioning software will no longer
work on the disk.

George