Help with Linux?

[Colin Kenyon]

Hello All,

I know this is not directly Ruby related, but a bit of advice would be welcome, and, I use the term respectfully, you're the probably the best informed geeks I know, not to mention the only ones!!

I'm looking at installing Linux on my PC, and trying to figure out the best flavour.

Ubuntu stands out, naturally. However, it occurs to me that there may be other platforms that could stick a GUI on top?

I've used UNIX ages ago so I'm not afraid of the CLI, that's one of the considerations I'm looking at. I think that it could be useful to learn more about Linux by being able to use the CLI?

Let's not worry about "how" I'm going to do this, just the "what" is good enough for now.

For the record, I've got a 250MB SSD and a 2TB hard drive installed, running Win7.

I considered reconfiguring so that the hard drive is C: and giving that to Windows, then letting Linux have the luxury of the SSD, but all that is a maybe.

Thanks in advance

Colin Kenyon.

[Rob Gough]

I think Ubuntu is a fine choice, if for no other reason than it's popularity helps ensure there's tonnes of resources out there when you inevitably run into a problem.

I think the most popular desktop distros at the moment tend to be Ubuntu (based off of Debian), Mint (based off of Debian and Ubuntu – though I'm not sure how that works? :P) and Arch (based off of living life on the edge). I guess maybe Fedora too? I choose Debian for my servers, but if I was abandoning my Mac laptop right now I'd probably go with Ubuntu.

Whichever distros you find interesting, I think it would be worth trying in a VM first to get a feel. Even on a moderately spec'd PC nowadays the VM performance in linux should be more than good enough to help you make a decision.

HTH,

Rob

Colin Kenyon.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "North West Ruby User Group (NWRUG)" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nwrug-member...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send an email to nwrug-...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nwrug-members.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Mark van Harmelen]

Hi Colin

I've used both Ubuntu and Elementary OS in the last year, preferring Elementary simply because the UI is cleaner. Some people dislike Ubuntu's Unity desktop, I'm neutral there, for me Elementary wins because of its clean design. 

Elementary is derived from Ubuntu. I see the newest version of Elementary, Freya, is derived from Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. 

I'd try to keep at least boot partitions for both Win and Linix on the SSD, ditto the linix swap partition and anything involved in running tests.

I'm sure you can figure out some way to mount the hard drive under both OSes which imho would be handy. Eg Linix can read and write NTFS reliably these days I believe.

How: Install LInix after Windows...

This is sent after Rob's mail, but he talks about VMs, with enough memory you can easily and comfortably use VirtualBox to run Win under Linux and - as I recall - set up VB to have normal windows for each running application (ie not in a single VM window), so your desktop contains a mixture of Linux and Windows windows.

mark

Mark van Harmelen

phone   +44 7830 212 464
skype    markvanharmelen

Colin Kenyon.

[Sean Bamforth]

Ubuntu is the most popular distro, so probably the best option.

If you just needed the CLI, then Amazon Web Services would be a good
option. You can spin up and destroy Linux servers as and when you use
them.

Personally - I use http://nitrous.io . It provides a web based linux cli
with an editor.
There's also
- terminal.com
- codenvy

and a host of solutions that do things this way.

--
Sean Bamforth
p: +44 (0)7802 653722
w: http://threeparams.com
e: se...@theguru.co.uk

[Phil Kershaw]

Ubuntu, as other have said is by far the most popular but it's all higly dependent on what you want it for. I've used;

- Debian, not pretty but rock solid (though some packages are much older than those you'll find on Ubuntu - nothing to stop you installing them from an Ubuntu repo though);

- CentOs, purely in the shell, never the desktop. Based on Redhat and I believe still geared towards web hosting;

- Ubuntu, the prettiest I've used. Based on Debian but provides the more cutting edge packages;

- RedHat Enterprise, just don't do it to yourself!

- MintOS, based on Ubuntu (and ultimately Debian) the differences being much of a muchness.

The choice ultimately comes down to how pretty you want it to be and either RedHat based or Debian based - unless you go with FreeBSD which I didn't like at all. Regardless, I wouldn't bother with a dualboot. Not since seamless mode was introduced into VirtualBox. In my experience it works very well and can be easily set up with Vagrant. On which note, 

Vagrant could actually aid your choosing as you can set up and tear down any/all of them at will.

I hope you find what you're looking for - it's a tough one with all the options on the table. Good luck!

[Colin Kenyon]

Hi,

I like the idea of the virtual machine!! Info I had found seemed to suggest that Windows gets upset and possessive if disturbed!!

Any software with a name like Vagrant looks interesting - haha

Also liking the idea of being able to try out various stuff with little disruption. It's a learning experience as such.

Thanks

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "North West Ruby User Group (NWRUG)" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/nwrug-members/_muHQp7eZc4/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to nwrug-member...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to nwrug-...@googlegroups.com.

[Andrew Premdas]

My experience,

Ubuntu: clunky, sometimes a pain in the butt, but generally looks after itself quite well

Mint: similar to Ubuntu, a little more conservative about UI

Crunchbang #!: fast/minimal, but a bit of a pain on very modern hardware, mostly because of its debian roots. Slightly higher maintenance load, very programmer/cli focused with good minimalism

Arch (in various forms): Great if you commit yourself to learning and using your OS every day for the rest of your life. You can control everything :) You have to control almost everything :(. You can make yourself a lightning fast programminng paradise. However it could take you so long to do this that you never get any programminng done!

Others; ElementaryOS, Mandriva, Debian

After spending quite alot of time with linux over the years I'm back to OSX. It has a good enough terminal, a good enough package manager (homebrew), and the other stuff just works (sometimes quite elegantly). Sometimes having choices made for you is good for you.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "North West Ruby User Group (NWRUG)" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nwrug-member...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send an email to nwrug-...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nwrug-members.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

------------------------

Andrew Premdas

blog.andrew.premdas.org

[Graham Ashton]

On Tuesday 26 May, Andrew Premdas wrote:

> Crunchbang #!: fast/minimal, but a bit of a pain on very modern hardware,
> mostly because of its debian roots. Slightly higher maintenance load, very
> programmer/cli focused with good minimalism

I agree - #! is excellent. Well it was; the guy behind it shut it down earlier this year. In his message announcing #!'s demise, he said that people could now get what #! offered using stock Debian.

To the original question; I'd highly recommend installing a few distros in virtual machines too, and seeing which one you like the most. You'll learn something useful that way (whichever distro you stick with).

My personal favourite is Debian, and some of the smaller distros that are based upon it (such as #!). When Ubuntu first came out it was a very welcome way to get up to date desktop software running on a Debian base, but the gap has closed as the Linux desktop has matured.

Hardware support in Ubuntu is excellent though, especially if you've got very recent hardware.

[Colin Kenyon]

Thanks everyone!!

VirtualBox is very interesting!

Ubuntu didn't seem to work very well - not sure if that's the virtual box though?

Mint was practically perfect. Apart from some slowness due to using a VM?

I'll play around with various things I think - hopefully I can get different VMs talking to each other as if they were physically existing!!

It's a bit of a minefield tbh - too many cooks.........

Thanks,

Col

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "North West Ruby User Group (NWRUG)" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/nwrug-members/_muHQp7eZc4/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to nwrug-member...@googlegroups.com.