Mark, I have tried a variety of variety of Linux distributions over the years, including OpenSUSE, Ubuntu and RedHat. I first settled on RedHat because it was the only one at the time that I could get to support Sharp APL for Unix, SAX.
Later, I switched to SUSE and then OpenSUSE as they were the only ones I could get to easily work on the hardware I was running. As Alex noted, I have discovered that the decision about which Linux to install is often driven by hardware support. The most iffy items I have found are video drivers, wireless support, audio cards and laptop support in general. Given the low cost of gigabytes these days, my suggestion would be to set up a multi-partition, multi-boot system with as many versions of Linux and IDE's as you are interested in evaluating. I have found that the installers for the new Linux distributions are much simpler and more bullet proof than in prior years. You could even play around with X86 Solaris. I have had far better luck with Linux on desktops than with laptops. I regret to say it helps me appreciate one of Microsoft's major achievements: decent support out of the box for a vast assortment of hardware. By it's nature, Linux will usually lag in its hardware support. I find Linux tends to run first time on systems that are older than a year or three. Running Linux on state of the art hardware often required that I get into beta drivers or use odd approaches like ndiswrappers. Often, I couldn't get one distribution or another to work satisfactorily at all on a particular hardware configuration due to some quirk of the hardware support. At the moment, I find OpenSUSE works for my needs. I am using it with SAX, J and an assortment of compilers. I have used it to work with the Fortran routines from Netlib and other web libraries. As an old-timer, I am using the tools directly, rather than via an IDE. I was pleasantly surprised when OpenSUSE ran first time on my new notebook. It was a low-end notebook, with the most generic hardware. Good luck, -- David Mitchell Mark Deardorff wrote: > Sorry for butting in here but I have a question you can probably answer for > me. What is a better installation of UNIX for software development and > general scientific and math computing? OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Redhat or some > other? I am a Windows(ze) 7 user (well, as of 10/22/09) and want to learn > Linux (used to be a Unix user). What will be better for me? I am running an > AMD Phenom 64 which is a quad core box. Thanks, somuch, in advance. (Alo > what is a good IDE?) > > On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 3:38 AM, David Mitchell <[email protected]>wrote: > >> I had a somewhat different experience with OpenSUSE 64 11.1. >> >> When the hard drive on my Gateway MT6456 notebook died a few months ago, I >> replaced it with one twice as large. I configured it as dual boot with >> Vista 32 >> on 1/2 of the drive and OpenSUSE 64 11.1 on the other 1/2. >> >> I used the the current NVIDIA support at the time via YAST and it worked >> first >> time for me after the download and install. >> >> I don't use the other three features that didn't work for you. >> -- >> David Mitchell >> >> Alex Rufon wrote: >>> Well, although I got J to work with OpenSUSE on my Lenovo T61 ... I had >> to give up on it after reinstalling the OS 3 times and switched to the 64bit >> Ubuntu 9. I should have done that in the first place instead of wasting 2 >> days. >>> Here are some of the major problems which made me back away from >> OpenSUSE. >>> 1. NVIDIA driver installation - your system will refuse to boot >>> 2. NTFS write mode support - you really have to jump through hoops just >> to write to NTFS partitions >>> 3. Support for Wireless USB network - just doesn't work. >>> 4. Support for 3G Network - intermittent >>> >>> When I switch to Ubuntu this morining ... everything worked without even >> opening the console. Just relied on wizards for the configuration and no >> more problems. >>> r/Alex >>> ________________________________________ >>> From: [email protected] [[email protected]] On >> Behalf Of bill lam [[email protected]] >>> Sent: Monday, September 28, 2009 10:24 PM >>> To: [email protected] >>> Subject: Re: [Jgeneral] J64 on OpenSUSE 11.1 64bit OS (WAS: RE: [Jbeta] >> 602 ebeta available for linux32 and linux64) >>> nvidia driver is troublesome enough and I gave up. Now I just vesa >>> driver. >>> >>> You are welcome to post a record of how to fix the nvidia driver (may >>> be in jchat). >>> >>> On Mon, 28 Sep 2009, Alex Rufon wrote: >>>> Thanks Bill. >>>> >>>> I'll just edit the jwd script. Unfortunately, I broke my system >>>> after trying to install the NVIDIA driver (which for some reason >>>> installed a new broken kernel ... why?). Now X won't start. >>>> Grrrrrrrr. >>>> >>>> I'm going to reinstall and try it again ... if I don't comment on >>>> this, everything is fine. ;) >>> -- >>> regards, >>> ==================================================== >>> GPG key 1024D/4434BAB3 2008-08-24 >>> gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys 4434BAB3 >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
