My sister just got me a job at the company she works for as a computer programmer and they use Linux. I have Windows XP but I want to install Linux to work with XP (On a seperate partition of course). Which version of Linux do you recommend? I have OpenLinux 2.2 and Red Hat 7.0 (But can download 9(ish?)) I am also thinking about redoing my game engine on Linux. Which compiler would you recommend? The only compiler on Linux I heard of is GNU C. P.S. Before anyone bombs me let me say this. I have done very little on Linux, BUT the company is going to train me from the ground up. They know I have little experience with Linux, and they think thats good They said they can 'customize' me the way they would want (Without any outside influences). The last guy they had thought he was a big shot and kept messing up their systems, thats why they want someone they can train. Anyway, if you guys can help me out on those 2 simple questions, I would greatly appreciate it. EDIT By the way, what do I need to be able to choose which system I want to boot? LILO? Thank you for your time, -UltimaX- "You wished for a white christmas... Now go shovel your wishes!" [edited by - UltimaX on September 4, 2003 11:22:42 AM]

Although all forms of Linux are going to be similar, I think it would be better if you go the same version of Linux as you would be using at work, that why you'll be able to find things easily.

GCC works on linux and I'm using Kdevelop which comes with Red Hat 9.0 for the development of my game..

EDIT: If you installing Red Hat it will automatically setup the dual boot when you go through the installation process

Please visit Turt99 Productions

[edited by - Turt99 on September 4, 2003 11:26:00 AM]

Thank you very much Turt. I''ll download Red Hat 9 today. I don''t know what version they use, but they all should have some similarity?

(Good thing I have cable, I think it''s over a GIG )

-UltimaX-

"You wished for a white christmas... Now go shovel your wishes!"

I haven''t really used anything but a few versions of RedHat, but Redhat or any of the frontends are just that a layer that sorta sits on the basic linux structure and lets you view things, so yeah the ideas will all be the same they might just be laid out the same..

Yeah Redhat is 3CD''s so you''ll probably be downloading for a while..

Please visit Turt99 Productions

I started downloading the shrike-i386-disc1.iso, and it''s not going to take as long as I thought. It has 2 hours and 43 minutes left. So maybe around 7-8 hours for all 3 disks. Not to bad I guess?

-UltimaX-

"You wished for a white christmas... Now go shovel your wishes!"

This might be the wrong forum, you might get more info on the "Everything Unix" forum.

Honestly, distributions don''t make a huge difference in the big picture. However, if you''re just trying to get a system up quickly and want to have a pretty good on CD repository of apps, Red Hat 9 or Red Hat Severn (the 10 beta) are probably good choices. (If you started 9, don''t worry about Severn, they''re almost the same from my first glance).

You might want to stick with what your company uses, especially if you have support contracts or share machines with co-workers.

Intel has a compiler for Linux that has been known to produce some faster code than GCC. I don''t think they have it at a state where it can compile the kernel (doesn''t support all GCC flags yet, but its their final goal). I think they have compiled the kernel with patches to their compiler....word is the next release might be able to replace gcc for your default installer, but have to wait and see if that materializes. The eval version is free, I don''t know what the licensing is however, you should check it if you intend to use it to compile something you wish to sell or profit from.

You might also need to get the SRPMs for Red Hat if you ever need to do a custom compile or modify your Kernel. It''s another 3 CDs if you have the bandwidth. I usually just place all the RPMs and SRPMs on a network share for everyone to make use of for each current RHat version we got running.

Red Hat has the best vendor support IMHO, though I find they are annoying to tweak. They have a lot of nested scripts and non-standard file locations, but I think they''re one of the best to get a working, easy to use desktop with a normal install (very little tweaking often needed for a solid desktop).

I prefer BSD for servers (Open or Free), but their desktops are much harder to get to a "this is a cool desktop look" point (little more raw X than RHat or Mandrake). Rhat does an excellent job detecting video card and monitor settings.

I think it''s funny they want to customize you =) Usually they need someone to customize the systems, but that''s cool.

Like the other poster said, you might want to get the same distro they use at your work place, but you''ll find most of the software is the same, just version and configuration file location differences across distributions. Only other difference in distribution is the system configuration files and startup scripts, but a quick google or homepage search will clear up the differences once you know what to look for.

Int.

Wow, thanks for all of the useful information. I''ll look into everything you suggested. Do you have any useful web sites for anything you mentioned? I think I''m going to go buy Partition Magic, I hate doing partitions. (Especially the first one I ever did, what a mess )

quote:
I think it''s funny they want to customize you =) Usually they need someone to customize the systems, but that''s cool.

Tee hee. I laughed to when my sister told me they said that. It''s all good to me though, they paying me triple of what I make now. For that, I''ll let anyone customize me

BTW: Sorry about the wrong forum

Thanks for the help Interim,


-UltimaX-

"You wished for a white christmas... Now go shovel your wishes!"

Moved to Everything Unix.

Thank you

Sorry agian for that.

-UltimaX-

"You wished for a white christmas... Now go shovel your wishes!"

Best site to start with learning Linux:

Linux Doc Project http://www.tldp.org/.

Most of it is pretty distro agnostic, but you''ll find notes when they do it one way or another by distribution from time to time.

Int.