So I've been using Ubuntu 15.10 on my HP Spectre x360 and I love it. The Numix gtk theme and Numix circle icons pack make Ubuntu look fantastic! (I will always stand by the opinion that the Ambiance theme looks like dirt). Here's a screenshot of my beautiful desktop: And here's some more screenshots of different IDE's/editors on my computer Atom.io: Eclipse CDT: Netbeans: Does anyone have a favorite IDE? I actually really like NetBeans on Linux. It just has all these nice things in one place and seems much more polished than Eclipse CDT. As far as text editors go, Emacs is a fantastic in-terminal editor but more complete, modern editors like Atom.io are nice too. I won't touch Vim with a ten foot pole and Gedit just kinda gets the job done (it's not nearly as interesting as GNU Emacs 24). I've also recently discovered Bash scripting in Expect: Using Expect Scripts to Automate Tasks ยป ADMIN Magazine and it's fantastic for automation of things like uploading files to a remote server! I mostly program in C++, but I also know Python 3. Anyone else into coding and Linux and stuff like that? I've been amusing myself over break with perfecting my Linux installation and finding a good development environment on Linux (previously I was using GNU make for Windows and the MinGW compiler, but the whole experience just seemed subpar). I'm pretty much invested in my Linux installation now that I got a few weird things ironed out.
Hey, I'm currently using Linux on Raspberry Pi. I just started and most console commands are utter Greek to me but luckily most things can be found using google. I'm hoping to build a weather station around the Pi. I have done some very basic programming with C++ in Arduino environment and some Python 3 programming on the Pi. By no means I'm pro. I got zero background in programming and I'm just studying on my own but I'm hoping to learn more. In Pi I use the default IDE for Python.
Euler, how interesting, I have no idea how to develop applications for environments like the Raspberry Pi. I do know how to create fairly complex console text-based programs, however. I just haven't had the opportunity to do much with graphical applications yet. I can't imagine that it's very easy to program for the Pi, considering its extremely limited processing power. You should really invest some time into learning C++ for object-oriented programming experience, it's quite interesting! Python seems to me almost a 'toy' scripting language. Python's very high-level, but I prefer C++. Also, try to learn some more console commands, the terminal is surprisingly robust!
Yeah, Pi has its limitations though the latest version (Pi 3, released last month) can even run Windows 10 so it's not such a big problem anymore. I think that even with the older modules you can program simple console based applications without much consideration for the hardware limitations. My weather station application is concerned only collecting data from the sensors and then delivering it over the internet to me. I would also like to be able to access the weather station remotely to check the weather on real time. I'll definitely put some serious effort on both learning to use Linux console commands as well as learning to write proper OOP. Yeah, I agree, Python seems very simplistic compared to C++ but that is not to say that you couldn't write proper serious programs with it. Do you have any good material recommendations for C++ or for learning the console commands?
Awesome! Arch Linux seems a tad complicated to manage, so I never tried it. How did you learn how to install all the components? Sublime is great btw, I forgot to mention it.
Wow u start seriously developing in linux at the age of 18, nice do u use virtual box ? I didn't like Ubuntu tbh, i like the fedora/centos GUI, and the IDE i usually used is the built in text editor for python, and either eclipse/netbeans/another-simple-editor-i-forgot-the-name-of for C. On windows thought i think I prefer nowdays PyCharm (netbeans) for python, its kinda heavier than notepad++ but has way more features. I dont like eclipse anymore
So true, eclipse is extremely unpolished feeling. And aw thanks it's a hobby of mine And noooo I don't virtualized, I'm actually dual booting windows and Ubuntu. Virtualizing is horribly inefficient and buggy. I have both my home folder in Linux and my Windows C: partition encrypted, but I also have a common area for my music in between. It's interesting haha. The sound in Linux on my laptop is shit tho because of some weird firmware issue I can't possibly fix, so I use a USB DAC. Otherwise, it's quite nice.
Arch, I hate to say it, is just a lot of reading the wiki. Arch Linux, or what I call "Arch proper" is pretty much a manual installation. I use it because I like it on the bleeding edge, I like being forced to understand my OS internals, and I like the package manager. If you want the Arch experience without most of the annoyance, I feel Manjaro is good to try. It's Arch-derived, but easier to install. I think Arch is a wonderful distro, but I honestly think its philosophy is self-marginalizing. They've decided not to be a user-friendly distro, and they have to accept the elitism that comes with that. Unfortunately, that also means that other Arch users are perceived as carrying that elitism. I have no particular investment in Linux. I just don't want people to have to pay money for software, or to have no idea what happens to their data, or not to be able to understand what their software does or how to change it. So I don't bash on Ubuntu users. I was a Ubuntu user myself once. And I didn't "grow out of it." It's just that my preferences changed. But the preferences of others who use Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, and other mixes are totally legitimate. I am happy for them to be getting a free computing experience where, in principle, they can understand and change their software. And where, due to the political commitments of the GNU and free software communities, they can be relatively assured that people aren't programming computers to sell them down the river to US law enforcement and intelligence. But I realize that doesn't answer your question. It depends on what components you want. It seems like you might have an interest in game development on the graphics side. Do let me know if you'd like to try Arch, either on a VM or on a different partition, and I can hook you up with step-by-step advice or help to clarify some of the things that need further explanation at the Arch wiki. __Adrienne()
Wow, thanks for the advice! And I'm glad you're not one of the 'elitists' haha. I recently came to the realization that GNU/Linux is a massive and beautiful open-source plethora of actually-free-no-strings-attached software. I suppose for me, the user-friendliness of Ubuntu/Mint and Fedora is paramount to understanding what's going on beneath. Frankly, I'm not going to be writing firmware or poking around in the internals of the Linux kernel. So...the overall look and feel of the OS as well as general reliability and user-friendliness is more achievable with a packaged deal like Ubuntu. Also, most user-friendly software works best on common distros like Ubuntu or Debian. I'm not really sure how diverse the ecosystem is on Arch... I like to have popular applications up and running without annoying setup. And (arguably) the beauty of modern operating systems is that you don't have to understand what's going on underneath. (That's the principle of abstraction and encapsulation hard at work). In fact, messing around in operating systems like Android is fairly risky and unforgiving (I've bricked a phone before hehe). In OSX, messing around is nigh on impossible. I call OSX (and even more so iOS) the 'walled garden' simply because there is NO realistic opportunity to mess with the system. This trend is somewhat disturbing, but also protects the user from harming the machine and threatening the security of their system. Really, there is a happy medium between user-friendliness and user-privilege. I think Ubuntu presents a much more user-friendly version of Linux while still retaining user-privilege. Which is why I find myself frequently using Ubuntu much more than Windows. It just feels more...dangerous hehe. I can totally understand what you mean about feeling the 'bleeding edge' of using Linux compared to stale operating systems like OSX. Even Windows is feeling increasingly locked down compared to Linux. There's just no UI customization options at all. The ONE and only thing that OSX has gotten right, however, is display scaling on high DPI displays. Almost all Linux software and some (especially older) Windows software is dirt poor in this regard. On a laptop with a 13 inch screen (which is my primary machine for mobility and ease-of-use), display scaling is a serious problem. On Windows 10, I have to increase my display scaling to 200% (Optimally, I'd have my scaling at 175% but the icons are all fucked up looking because for some reason Windows is super weird that way). And...on Linux, I have to decrease my resolution from 2560x1440 to 1600x900 in order for most any software to be even readable (The eye strain is so real). Thanks for your insight!
