Thanks everyone. Sorry Oleg, I have already invested in PC hardware and cannot afford the Mac iron. I have the Ubuntu disk and will boot from it to do some partition work before I install it.
Mark On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 3:36 AM, David Mitchell <[email protected]>wrote: > 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 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
