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Windows Operating Systems Software Linux

Linux Distros for a Windows Software Developer? 85

Posted by Cliff from the how-would-you-switch dept.
Omega1045 asks: "I am a software developer, writing client/GUI software in C# (.NET) on Windows and server software in a UNIX environment. I have used Linux in the past as a firewall, server and more but have never used it seriously as a desktop. What Linux distro and tools should I look to for a switch? I definitely still need to run Win2k (in a VM would be preferable) for testing and other purposes, but want to live as much of my monitor facing life as I can in Linux. I also need the best laptop and Wireless PC Card support (D-Link in my case) from the distro I choose. Have any Slashdot readers gone this route? What are your recommendations?"
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Linux Distros for a Windows Software Developer? More

Linux Distros for a Windows Software Developer?

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  • Why switch? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 12, 2004 @09:41PM (#9682114)
    What are the reasons for switching? If Windows' right for you, you should stick to it. Specially if you're writing C#!
    • Just because his job requires him to interact with windows, doesn't mean that he considers it "right" for himself.

      Too many times when using a windows client I've had to sftp files to my FreeBSD box in order to use some tools on them that just don't have native windows versions and then sftp the results back. Running windows in a VM-type setup would sure make that process a lot easier, for example.

      --
      Kirby Reviews [generalhouseware.com]
      • That's a waste of time. That correct thing to do is to install Cygwin, then you can use all the, albeit gnu style, unix utilities you want.

        If you hate gnu utilities, you can pay mks a bunch of money for their port of posix compliant unix utilities.
        • Yeah. Um, no sense using whatever tools are at your disposal, right?

          I've used both Cygwin and Debian, and it's much quicker to SSH into my Debian box (that's already set up how I want it), than to get Cygwin up on a box (both the first time, and every time I nuke the OS and reinstall W2K.)

    • Re:Why switch? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by caseih ( 160668 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @11:42PM (#9682780)
      Not so. Use mono and develop on and for both platforms. Clearly a win win. And if you happen to like Linux better then you haven't lost anything.
      • Use mono and develop on and for both platforms.

        I hate to break the news to you but mono is not quite ready yet.

        • Someone forgot to tell me. In what ways would you say mono is not quite ready yet? Mono is already very capable and I have seen quite a few interesting things done with it (including running java programs via the ikvm bytecode translator). Mono is pretty dang good and can stand on its own today.

          Web app stuff is a little weak, but the poster of this topic was developing client apps, not web apps. While SWF on linux isn't at all there, GTK# is (and works really, really well). Not ideal, but if you prac
          • In what ways would you say mono is not quite ready yet?

            To test the 1.0 version of mono after installing it, I attempted to run an nunit [nunit.org] test of a middleware assembly (no GUI) that I coded for the ISV that I work for. The test runs without mishap using Microsoft's VM but crashes when using the mono VM.

            I get this message (with different line numbers) 2863 times.

            CRITICAL **: file metadata.c: line 798 (mono_metadata_string_heap): assertion `index < meta->heap_strings.size' failed

            I get this messag

  • There's not much more to say, you will be about as current as you can get (for a few days), and it should be stable and have lots of tools for you.
    • SuSE is best desktop distro. Just try SuSE 9.1 Automatically configures everything for you (unlike fedora which will not play mp3s, you wont have to spend time installing flashplayer and java and lot of other small things which can not be ignored.)
      • Although if you want to play dvd's, divx, or any other type of worthwhile media aside from mp3's you'll have to hunt down 3rd party sources.

        The good thing is that, unlike fedora where 3rd party sources containing MASSIVE repositories of rpms are all over the place confusing you. With SUSE there are like two, and they have less packages than the cd's do not more. In fact, if you actually manage to find a 3rd party repository for yast that has something in it besides the base distribution, let me know.
        • Also KDE-RedHat project keeps KDE up2date (harhar).

          You can use up2date, yum, or apt-get to update your system too (apt-get isn't on FC1 cd, not sure about FC2).
          • apt is definately the way to go, generally I install from the dag repository on a fedora system, which loads you up with 3 or 4 very large compatible repositories.

      • Agreed. SUSE 9.1 is fantastic. One thing, though, is that (as of last week, anyhow), the diskpack's Mono 0.3 didn't have an online update to any more recent revisions (such as the recent v.1.0). I had to download the MonoAll zip file, unpack the RPMs, point YaST to the folder containing all the RPMs, then select the "Install Everything" selection from the list. It really wasn't much of an effort, but I was sort of frustrated that, since Novell owns both SUSE and Ximian, they would have at least cross-po

  • Start with Knoppix (Score:4, Insightful)

    by darnok ( 650458 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @09:45PM (#9682130)
    I'd start with Knoppix, as it has great hardware detection, a large selection of out-of-the-box apps that will meet most peoples' requirements, and has the huge Debian repository sitting behind it if/when you want to install extra stuff or keep versions of your existing stuff up to date.

    I'm sure MandrakeMove is going to be about the same, but Knoppix would be my "default" choice simply because I've had great experiences with it to date.

    I use Knoppix on my main development PC at home; works great and it takes about an hour to fully rebuild it from bare metal if/when I get the inclination. That hour includes the time to:
    - apt-get update,
    - install netselect-apt & run it to find the fastest repository
    - apt-get update again from the fast repository
    - apt-get upgrade to bring everything up to date
    - install a few other things like Postgres, Zope etc.
    • Knoppix is great, but if you don't know what you're doing, it can be difficult to transfer it to a hard drive. Sometimes it's an easy install, but if it isn't, it can be a real hell. I've seen it, and it's not a pretty sight.

      • Re:Start with Knoppix (Score:3, Insightful)

        by darnok ( 650458 )
        That was true, but it's steadily improved over the past several months. The current installer ('knoppix-installer'? - don't have it at my fingertips) has made things simpler still. Of course, like anything else, it's a relative thing; for any specific user, it may be either too hard or ridiculously easy at any point in time.

        By the way, the original poster mentioned doing development with C#. I've been playing with Mono on my Knoppix-installed dev PC at home for a while now, and it works fine. Not sure
        • I haven't tried the new installer, but I had not yet heard a lot comments on it. I've installed Knoppix, then done an "apt-get dist-upgrade" and had everything working perfectly. Then I've had other times where I've installed Knoppix and it was a nightmare from go. I'm sure, like all OSS in Linux (except the last version of Gnome) that it is getting easier and easier to use.

          I didn't even bother to mention Mono. I figured, considering the timing of the post and that Mono has just reached 1.0 gold, that

  • You won't use just one distro... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheWanderingHermit ( 513872 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @09:48PM (#9682156)
    You'll want to change. I'm sure, by the time I finsih this, someone will have jumped in and say, "Debian," since Debian-ites seem to think there is only one distro. (And, to be honest, I'd recommend it in part, but more later.)

    I'd suggest Mandrake to start with, since it is actually easier to install than Windows XP. It's easy to use, and it has URPMI, so it is MUCH easier to upgrade on EVERY PACKAGE than Red Hat or Suse. Then I'd bear in mind that this is just your first use of any distro, and that you'll get a chance to find out the strengths and weaknesses of it, and you'll move on.

    After you've had a chance to get used to Linux, and are looking for something more powerful, try Libranet. Libranet is based on Debian, but without the impossible install (Debian-ites will say the install is easier, but that's relative. It's easier than it was, which means it's easier than getting a root canal.) Since Libranet is about to publish a new version, you can get 2.8.1, which is what I've been using on a few boxen, for free at their site. When their next version (3.0) comes out, you can easily upgrade to that version with one or two commands.

    I've made my recommendations based on what is easy to start with, and on the general principle that after you get used to Linux, you'll most likely want to try something different. Debian is easy to upgrade and maintain, but even Libranet can be hard to install for someone who hasn't been using Linux for a good while.

    I know there are other easy to install distros (like Linspire and Lycoris), but Mandrake is the only easy-to-install-and-maintain distro that is "mainline" in terms of including all the goodies Linuxers want on their system.

    And, to anticipate comments that Mandrake is too easy, made for beginners, or doesn't let you have fine control over settings, ANY distro lets you have as fine a control over settings as you want. Some have easy to use config panels (like Mandrake's "Mandrake Control Center"), but in ANY distro, you can bypass their control panel and edit all the config files by hand, if you want. -- So it's not going to take away control, it just makes it easier for someone who isn't already a full time Linuxer to install, setup, configure, and maintain.
    • I think the fact that I forgot this is pretty telling. It's been years (literally) since I've had problems with Mandrake recognizing ANY kind of hardware. So long, in fact, that I forgot to mention that Mandrake is just about the best in recognizing just about any kind of hardware you can throw at it and auto-installing it.

      With Mandrake, I don't even think about hardware as a problem. With other distros, I find I still have to worry about it.
      • Thanks for the input. I have an old Mandrake 8 server that I used to use for my firewall. It had a hard time with some cheap Linksys netcards but worked well with some cheap 3Coms. I might try them out. I am also looking at Fedora and Gentoo (looking for a headache!).
  • You are going to get a lot of opinions from this question. He are mine.

    Remember why you want to have Linux, and stick with the distros that fit that niche. At guess I would say you should stick with a major commercial distro. Don't be fooled by the "just emerge foo" crowd. Gentoo is a great distro, but if you want to get up and running SuSe, Fedora, Mandrake, all can be installed and updated in an hour or so if you have a fast internet connection. Also if you are a C# programmer, remember to at least insta

  • Not the easiest approach but...Gentoo (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ChaseTec ( 447725 ) <chase@osdev.org> on Monday July 12, 2004 @09:57PM (#9682205) Homepage
    I'm a Java developer so I didn't need the VM stuff but I've gone from doing development on a Windows laptop to the same system with Linux. Gentoo is a pain to setup(first couple times around) but as far as laptop exp. goes for me I always end up needing the latest kernel, X server, etc in order to get everything working. But I am writing this from my laptop.

    It took about a week and a half on and off to get my laptop(HP ze4240) fully working. We're talking 2.6.5 kernel, Xorg w/ dri cvs for 3d, linuxant modem driver, etc. But then you get in to things like my pcmcia DLink DWL-650 rev P 802.11b card wasn't support by the rev of the wlan software even in Gentoo so I had to go out and get the latest version of that.

    You might just want to go to http://www.distrowatch.com/ [distrowatch.com] and just try the most popular free distros till you get one that works on your system without too much hassle. You could also take a look at http://www.linux-laptop.net/ [linux-laptop.net] and see how other people faired at various distros on your laptop model.

  • Use any, but once you figure out what you are doing, switch to gentoo. Gentoo is source based. Its a good distro for both power users and upgrade addicts. BUT, if you don't like installs that give you lots of time to RTFM then try some of the newer distros, mabe gobo? Too many to name, if you have time I really think LFS is the best way to learn linux unless you have a mentor who knows everything from shell variables to session and window managers.

  • Realistically... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @10:09PM (#9682289) Journal
    ...from the point of view of a developer, it makes virtually no difference. The development tools are identical and behave identically across all distributions. I'd advise against my usual suggestion of a Mac because of the slow compile times of gcc on PowerPC, but otherwise your only concerns are the same issues of installation and maintenance as users in any other niche.
  • I really need some good recommendations for VM software in Linux. A while ago I used VMWare in Linux to run Windows, but it is much more expensive now ($99 vs $198). Are there any other choices someone might recommend to run Win2k or WinXP in Linux?

  • I was in the same boat (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Screaming Lunatic ( 526975 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @10:25PM (#9682386) Homepage
    ...about 5 years ago. The path I took was Mandrake, then RedHat, and now Gentoo.

    Pick a more configurable distribution as your comfort in the *nix world increases. You might want to start with a "standard corporate distro" like SuSe or RedHat. And then use something like Debian, Slackware, or Gentoo later on.

    Go through as many distros as feasible. It's a good learning experience.

    • My route was similar. RedHat for 3 years as a toy. Then an upgrade to Debian, and now Gentoo, as my full time desktops. I dont have a windows box any more, and the only time I look back is when I want to play the very few games that dont work in Cedega (WineX).

  • Gentoo (Score:3, Insightful)

    by His name cannot be s ( 16831 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @10:39PM (#9682464) Journal
    Gentoo is the one true distribution. All others are crap :p

    All kidding aside, as a developer who is new to Linux as a way of life, you really may want to Look into Gentoo, as it lends itself to a lot of learning quickly, and as a developer, you should be savvy enough to pick it up :)

    Gentoo: Beats the first rule [blogspot.com]
    • Having chased my tail before trying to find development versions of RPMs (such as boost, ncurses, etc), I can say that another big advantage of gentoo is that there is no need for separate development versions, as soon as the package is installed, all the headers are too.

  • Slow progress up (Score:3, Informative)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @10:41PM (#9682479) Homepage Journal
    I always have to reccomend to anyone to follow the path I followed.

    I used Redhat About 5 or 6 years ago. I moved to Mandrake because it supported my hardware better, and I used it up until a year ago. Then I moved to Gentoo where I am today.

    Start with Fedora or Mandrake. You will learn things there, but only so much. They will probably suit your needs for quite awhile. But invariably you will find things you don't like. And the user friendly guis wont have an interface in place for you to make things the way you want them to be. And the rpm packages available wont always be the way you want them to be. When you start feeling like you want more control over your pc and it starts getting frustrating to do things its time t move.

    This is when you move up the scale to gentoo, debian or one of the distros based on those two. Gobolinux, knoppix, libranet, etc. Also there is the lesser known lunar linux which is quite good. You will find one of these that suits you and that is where you will end up. Through the process of setting up this distro you will learn all the things you didn't know while using the easier distro. Rays of enlightenment will shine upon you from the heavens. Well, not quite, but it feels good.

    It is possible you will be eternally satisfied with Fedora/Mandrake. If this is the case, good, don't move up. The only reason to move up the scale is if you are the kind of person who is dissatisfied with the user-friendly offerings. However, there are also people who are still dissatsified with gentoo/debian level distributions. These people do something called linux from scratch. I like to call this unemployed linux for obvious reasons.

    Yeah, someone should really make a heirarchy of distributions in a nice graph. LFS could be at the top with lindows and xandros at the bottom. I'd do it, but I have a job. By the way, I'm all gentoo in this house, and yes I am a ricer and proud of it. Insert an emerge joke here.

  • Debian+KDE (Score:3, Informative)

    by Cranx ( 456394 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @10:53PM (#9682537)
    Debian+KDE might be right for you. You could probably get set up easier with Mandrake+KDE, but since you're a programmer, there's a good chance the *slightly* more difficult Debian install procedures are doable for you. Debian has a really, really nice network update system.

  • Don't Switch (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nathanh ( 1214 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @10:54PM (#9682548) Homepage

    I'm being serious. You state your requirements up front:

    I am a software developer, writing client/GUI software in C# (.NET) on Windows and server software in a UNIX environment... I definitely still need to run Win2k (in a VM would be preferable) for testing and other purposes, but want to live as much of my monitor facing life as I can in Linux.

    You are a Windows client developer and you need Windows for testing ergo you should run Windows as your desktop. If you have other unstated reasons for wanting to switch to Linux then I suggest you tell us what they are. We can't just guess at why you want to run Linux.

    Remember that you can run Linux in emulation on Windows too. Either in Virtual PC, VMware (I know VMware isn't really emulation), or even the free QEMU these days. So any desire to have the "server software" on your laptop shouldn't be a deciding reason to switch to a Linux desktop.

    • Because I am tired of the mounds of shit involved with Windows. Every 5 minutes there seems to be a virus. My disk is 15% fragemented and after running defrags 3 times over the last 48 hours it is no better. Most of the software I use can be replaced with OSS versions, and there are some things are already use on Windows all the time anyway like Firefox that are in Linux.

      This is my home dev laptop, which means I probably use it for c# software dev about 5 - 10 hours a week. Also, we are looking at migr

      • Re:Don't Switch (Score:5, Insightful)

        by nathanh ( 1214 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @02:49AM (#9683573) Homepage
        Because I am tired of the mounds of shit involved with Windows. Every 5 minutes there seems to be a virus. My disk is 15% fragemented and after running defrags 3 times over the last 48 hours it is no better.

        Ok, that's great. You've identified your primary reason for switching to Linux is security and your secondary reason is that Windows requires too much maintenance.

        I don't think any Linux distribution will ease your maintenance woes. Although I find Linux a lot easier to maintain than Windows I know this isn't the case for the majority of users. You should definitely avoid the high-maintenance and high-experience distributions like Debian and Gentoo (disclaimer: I personally use Debian).

        Regarding security, any distribution that regularly updates their packages in response to (or preempts) CERT advisories would be fine. You don't want to get into secure distributions like Smoothwall; they will not give you a good desktop experience. Nor do you want to use Linux distros like Knoppix that don't have a formal mechanism for deliving security updates.

        I think a paid and supported version of SuSe, Mandrake or RedHat would be your best bet. They offer the best balance between ease-of-use, ease-of-administration, cutting edge features, and automated security updates.

        I also just want to start using something better.

        Don't kid yourself that Linux is "better". It is different. For some jobs it can be better. For some jobs it can be worse.

      • I don't think you really want to run Windows in a VM, at least if you are planning to compile any decently sized project in it. Dual boot is much better IMO.

        I found SuSE 9.1 to be pretty much painless to get up and running, beautifully themed right out of the box, and extremely easy to keep up-to-date (with YaST/YOU), but the versions of software that are available on YaST are not always the latest ones. For example, as of this writing they're still on Firefox 0.8 and Thunderbird 0.5.

        By the way, I had

  • No, really. Might as well learn the hard way. Then you'll be a hard-core linux user.
    • So true. My first Linux experience was trying to fit and older version of Slack onto a computer with 4MB RAM---but I thought it had 16.

      Now seriously... other people address the question of distro, but nobody's hit his Wifi card yet. D-Link's Linux compatability chart is somewhere in their support section.
      • Slackware was my first linux distro and I believe it may be my last... unless I write my own with linuxfromscratch.org and probably use package management that compares to slack (or I might even include .deb and .rpm... evil, I know!)

        But for what this fella needs, I can't say. There are distro zelots all over suggesting gentoo, MDK, RH, FC2... etc. and they all have their good points.

        My _personal_ opinion on what he should use (and this is because I prefer it and do develop for windows on occation) is thi
    • Slackware was my first distro too can't remember the version, but it was pre version 1 - old man :-(.
      I've just installed Vector Linux 4.0 [vectorlinux.com] on my laptop and on an older desktop - it's a good way into a fast efficient no-frills linux system. I'm a windows developer so my work laptop is a w2k machine, to make it bearable I've installed niceties such as bash [cygwin.com], gvim [vim.org] and perl [activestate.com]. You could use Bochs [sourceforge.net] machine emulator to run w2k under linux. If you dual boot, you can use thunderbird email on a dual boot system [texturizer.net] with
  • What Linux distro and tools should I look to for a switch?

    There are about three hundred Linux distros available. Expect all of them to be recommended here, plus five different BSDs and two commercial Unixes...
  • You gotta play, man. Start with the easy stuff...Red Hat, Mandrake (the AOLs of Linux). Get used to them, welcome them as friends. Then move on to the the real stuff...Gentoo, Slackware, even the *BDSs. Love them, and they will love you. BUT...remember them all and all you learn. I am drunk and must sleep...argh...
  • Checkout coLinux [colinux.org]. Similar to a VM, it allows you to run a linux kernel along-side your windows apps and its free-software. Works GREAT and you can even have multiple instances running as well as setting instances as Windows Services. Support for debian, gentoo, fedora, slackware and others.

  • Suse 9.1 (Score:3, Informative)

    by blunte ( 183182 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @12:01AM (#9682865)
    I just recently did this same thing, and I finally landed on Suse 9.1.

    I tried the following, listed in order of preference:

    Libranet 2.8.1 - very nice commercial Debian system, but apt-get doesn't work like magic 100% of the time.

    Fedora Core 2 - very nice, but some immediate stability problems with Gnome Nautilus (crashes while trying to do Samba client things). Samba Active Directory features do not work as the pretty GUI tools would suggest. I'm sure with ample configuration of smb.conf and other conf files it may work.

    Knoppix 3.4 - very slick, but actually using it off CDROM is painfully slow. HD install not flawless, but once you mkswap manually you fix the one problem. Installs too much crap.

    Debian Sarge - same as Libranet, without the handy Adminmenu and other Libranet goodies. Same apt-get issues.

    FreeBSD 4.10 - nice, but building non-bin-supported products from ports gets old quickly. Firefox took ages to build on a 2GHz workstation class machine.

    Then I tried Suse 9.1 Personal when the ISOs were released free. Very very nice. High quality, great polish. YaST is quite good, but not perfect. Package installation using YaST is nice when it works (usually does), but when it fails you get no details about why it failed. You end up doing rpm from command line anyway, and as with all Linuxes you find that the reason for the failure was a missing dependency or a conflict.

    Ramming (force) the latest Samba server and client software down rpm magically got me a system that can painlessly connect to Active Directory network shares via Konquerer file manager, and after manually starting smbd and nmbd, I have a working Samba host. Very pleasant.

    My great desire is to find a distro that automagically does Active Directory membership/browsing, as well as hosting of shares within the domain. I also long for some kind of package management system that doesn't have every package fighting with every other package, or doom me to using several old version software.

    I'm sure this is naive, but I'd be happy with every package/app going in its own directory, and including (or automatically downloading) every library it needs and storing it in its own dir.

    If there's one huge huge rough spot in Linux/BSD desktop adoption, it's package management. None of the existing systems - ports, rpm, apt/dpkg work in all cases.

    Good luck.
    • i do not speak from my own experience, since these things do not work on the 64bit version (yet) but i have seen this work on a friends desktop:

      SuSE 9.1 is definately the distro you are looking for

      install Red Carpet (Ximian) and you should be able to install mono just fine... you can develop just about anything in monodevelop as long as you stay away from the GUI... it will compile (and even run natively in most cases) on win32-.NET

      the GUI part (WinForms) you'll have to do in Windows though...

      ohw and eh

    • If there's one huge huge rough spot in Linux/BSD desktop adoption, it's package management. None of the existing systems - ports, rpm, apt/dpkg work in all cases.

      Please excuse me for sounding like the typical gentoo fanboy. Portage seriously addresses this and then some -- to perfection. The "rough spot" has certainly been sanded. I've run through about 7 distros now in my short linux career and I always *hated* downloading and trying to install programs, because they'd always need infinite dependencie

      • Portage is fine if the software you want exists in the list. If not, you end up doing the old tarball manual install, after which you may or may not have conflicts with existing libraries and apps.

        It's also something of a drag to build some of the larger packages (like Firefox or OpenOffice). Those make a kernel compile look brief.
    • If there's one huge huge rough spot in Windows/MAC desktop administration, it's package management. None of the existing systems - compressed files, MSIs, InstallShield/WISE, or disk images work in all cases.

      Upgrades of previous products frequently break.

      Installing a product doesn't automatically use the latest patched version, it installs the broken old version instead.

      CD drives or a self-maintained network share are usually required, and there are few network repositories and those that do exist (such
  • I had dabbled in C# about two years ago, mainly because creating windows gui clients with Windows.Forms was a godsend. Plus the gui creating tools in the MS Devel studio was awesome. Makes Java Swing look like a toy.

    Question being: I know there is some kind of meld with GTK and mono or dot gnu (not sure which), is it seamless with Windows.Forms classes? Will my Windows.Forms classes compile and run in mono in Xwindows.. as is?

    Love ,
    Zaq
    • Sortof, Windows.Forms runs via Wine in Linux (I don't know why they made this decision). The GTK bits are a seperate API (which is like the windows one if i remember rightly) but is not directly windows compatible.

      My recommendation, GTK libs on Mono, make it a thin client to a server of whatever type you want, this gives you portability where your clients usually want it.
      • I believe they use Wine because the System.Windows.Forms classes talk to the Win32 stuff. The listbox in .NET is just the Windows native ListBox being messaged through the Winforms class "ListBox". I bet they are running Wine because you can talk to the native objects underlying these objects to improve / tweak performace and functionality. So, you would need Wine to run the native stuff for you. That is my guess.
  • I'd suggest any flavor of RedHat, since that distro is the most heavily used in the corporate world as far as I can see (YMMV, though). That means you'll get supported by Oracle, Cisco, etc.

    Also, buy and install Crossover Office [codeweavers.com] right away. This will get you to run Office and other MS stuff flawlessly.

  • And I'm a Windows software developer trying to expand to Linux while my Windows PC collects dust for possibly the next year. But I doubt Fedora is the best. It has the 2.6 kernel thing going for it, but beyond that there are a lot of "bleeding edge" features resulting in quirks and other annoyances that require a bit of work to fix. I've got all the big ones under control. Like some kernel features that break a lot of software (like WINE) and are thus disabled by default are enabled by default in Fedora. It

  • Xandros. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jotaeleemeese ( 303437 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @04:03AM (#9683795) Homepage Journal
    Many people here recommend Debian, mostly because it is a doodle to administer.

    Many othere recommend Mandrake or SuSe, mainly for the eye candy.

    Well, get the best of both worlds and use Xandros. It is Debian under the hoods (you can actually point it to read the standard Debian software repositories) and it looks professional and polished.

    You cn integrate things like CrossOver or StarOffice (Sun's port of OpenOffice.org) with a couple of clicks of the mouse.

    My wireless card worked immediately after initial configuration (stick to supported hardware, Wireless support is far from stellar in Linux) and USB devices work as they should (I am using a 7 in 1 reader, again stick to supported devices, a graphic tablet and aprinter, all with no issues).

  • As far as drivers and D-Link compatibility, I just googled for "d-link drivers linux" - the first result was D-Link's own "unsupported community drivers" page [dlink.com]. As far as distro ... look, if you're going to end up with a server, you can probably scratch gentoo off the list; if you're not doing serious optimization, it's got no advantages over (and some disadvantages to) Debian. Don't go with Mandrake; it's just a wimped-down version of Fedora. Fedora or RHEL would be my vote, but Debian is also a good ch
    • I found that too, and found quite a few success stories for my card the 650+. It looks like I will be covered there, which is good. I also found some docs on Gentoo 2004.1 and the D-Link card. I would post them here but I found them at home and am at work now (different machine).

      I have experience with Mandrake and Redhat, so I have naturally been leading towards those projects (Fedora, that is). I am also seriously looking at Gentoo.

      Afraid Mono won't do it (wish it would) as I develop in Winforms and
  • You could use the Lindows developer edition. I think it is free if you download it using Bittorrent.
  • I made the switch back in 2000 and it's going to take you a little getting used to. Your problem is really with the C# aspect, especially if you're doing Win Forms stuff. If you use Dev Studio, you'll be spending more time in emulated Windows than anything else. Anyhow, back on topic, I started out on RedHat but switched to SuSE (7.0 was my first) after a brief stop on Mandrake. My primary reasons for moving to SuSE were a) the fact that the entire distro came on a DVD, b) built-in support for FreeSWAN, and
  • i was also a windows monkey, and i found the switch relativelly easy with as was said, Knoppix, but if you're familiar with linux, i suggest a much more stable distro, as debian, which would facilitate the transition.
  • I got a lot of really good feedback from this posting. I decided to do a little upgrading on an older machine of mine until I am ready to go full Linux on my Laptop. No matter what, I think I am going to need to have a Windows machine at home for dev. My big decision now is if I should leave an older machine for that task, or if I should use my laptop, or if some sort of VMWare is the answer.

    I decided to start with Gentoo. A lot of people gave me a lot of good choices, some that I had already researche

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