Starting Linux

I may take Linux programming next semester and i would like to get a head start on it. What is the best/easiest Linux type for that, and what literature should i look for?
thx in advance

From a programmer's perspective the distro doesn't make any difference, just choose one you're comfortable with. Maybe Debian?

As for literature, I think I'm bound by tradition to say K&R.

If I were to give you only one piece of advice it would be learn how to use a proper editor (ie: vim or emacs) if you have not done so already.

>>2
how to use a proper editor (ie: vim or emacs)
HA HA HA, 1970 called, it wants you back.

>>1
Don't listen to him, Anonymous, vim and emacs are ancient shitty editors with nonstandard keys, an ugly learning curve, and the ability to behave exactly the way you don't want to, and are made of ass and poo. The best editor I saw on Linux was Kate; unfortunately it's for X, but I'd rather shoot my balls than use vim or emacs.

>>1
As >>2 mentioned, it doesn't really matter. But you probably want to go for something easy to use and simple. Suse, Ubuntu, Fedora Core, Knoppix... they're all pretty good.
>>3 also makes an interesting point. Emacs can come in useful when you're shit hot at LISP, and if you've been using it since the 70s. I personally don't see the point in learning it, and if you do NEED to learn how to use it, it'll probably be later in your academic career. Gnome and KDE have nice IDEs that support most languages for syntax highlighting. Quite a few text editors do as well. They're generally all free, so just try out a few and go with what feels best.

For all your linux needs, check out:
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/
http://www.tldp.org/

Good luck, mate.

Getting to know the command line also helps. Just google "command line tutorial" or something like that, and you'll get loads of basic tutorials which will take you through the basic commands. It's pretty easy once you get into it a bit. And it's sooo fast.

>>1
Perhaps it would be more helpful if you clarified exactly what type of programming you intend to do on Linux. Kernel programming? System utilities? Graphical applications?

It's useful to learn the basics of vi and vi-like editors, if only because almost every Linux has it and you never know when you might need it. Waste of time learning emacs though.

As previous posters have recommended, find a better editor for your day to day tasks.

Go for Emacs if you 1) want to prove you can learn anything, which is a quality that seperates the retards from the programmers who earn decent money, 2) you should know a 'standard' editor, and 3) don't want to download 40GB of GUI library dependancy updates every week (and is left without an editor when that fucks up).

I've taught 60 year-old retirees how to use Emacs. Anyone who disses it for being 'omg 2 complicated' is just a mouth-breathing Windows kiddie failure who'll be working at BestBuy their entire lives (and not as a programmer..)

>>7
hahaha oh wow.

>>7
>>7
>>7

Despite his perhaps slightly aggressive conclusion, >>7 does bring up a good point. Emacs is a bit complex by today's UI standards, but it's in no way inaccessible or even that difficult if you put in the required effort.

Like vim, they're good advanced programming interfaces and are available on pretty much every unix-based system. However, so is nano/pico, which is very easy to use and learn, and is pretty convenient for quick edits. If anything, I recommend that you take 10 minutes to learn nano/pico, so that in an GUI emergency, you have something to fall back on.

However, don't believe >>7 about the need to learn emacs to become a good programmer. It'll help, but learning how to program and work consistently is what you really need. Finding a nice IDE you feel comfortable with (and if possible, something with a low number of dependencies so you can bring it around) is sufficient.

ed is the standard Unix text editor, you need nothing more.

Although learning the basic controls in Vim and Emacs is a good idea, they are used in quite a few places.

ed? Bollocks to that. If you want to write a text file use echo. If you want to make changes to your file use sed. Editors are for nancies.

>>12
Echo requires a shell, shells are bloat, use ed as your login shell.

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  59428 2005-12-03 18:25 /bin/ed
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 100884 2006-02-12 13:50 /bin/sed
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 501268 2005-12-18 18:32 /bin/zsh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 863704 2006-02-18 15:58 /bin/bash

>>13
You make a worthy point, but how do I compile and run my code from ed?

>>13
You make a worthy point, but how do I compile and run my code from ed?

>>14
!cc %

>>12
>>13
What fucking pansie computer are you guys running? Shells are bloat: I mean what the fuck, even my crappest desktop from 10 years ago could run bash without affecting system performance.

>>17 was the emo loser at school who never got the joke.

>>18 was the emo loser at school who thought the girls were joking when they tried to seduce him.

Ooh, >>19, you sure taught me!

>>20
>>18
I must admit I fail to see how someone telling you off for being a fucking loser is emo.

>>17
A shell is bloat, that is a fact. Do you even use 2% of all the features in your basic shell? I sure do not. Executing programs is all I do, tab completion is the only feature I am missing.

>>21
Next time I'm sure the authors of >>12,13 will put a nice big ITS A FUCKING JOKE YOU DAMN IDIOT just for >>17. Maybe we can convince MrVacBob to put in markup for <blink> in magic pink too!

How dense do you have to be not to get it? Can it possibly be any more obvious? Do we need metatags just so total fucktards "get" it? It boggles the mind.

>>23
GTFO text-attributes-fag.

SLACKWARE DUE TO SYSV UNIXNESS OF THE SCRIPTS

AND DONT RUN A GRAPHICAL UI FOR THE FIRST 6 MONTHS

SLACKWARE IS AWESOME

I like where this thread is going.

>>25 wins now and forever!

>>23
Again, we were not kidding ok.

>>26
I haven't used a GUI for years (except Windows).

Again, we were not kidding ok.

Yeah, suuuuuure.

And if you weren't, get your head checked.

>>31
Ummm, if anything, doesn't that prove me right, and shows that
>>18
>>20
>>23
were all wrong, and bastards at that? Yes it does.

>>32
What

>>33
READ motherfucker.

>>32
Actually, >>18 knew that he was wrong, but felt that some insulting was in order.

>>18 was the emo loser at school who thought the girls were joking when they tried to seduce him.

I've never been seduced or flirted with, at least to my knowledge, and have no way at all to tell when someone wants to flirt with me. I have had multiple friends as girls, though I haven't had any for the past two years.

>>36 isn't >>18

Nice try though.

>>37
Yup, but he's probably spot on the mark.

helo my naem is linus torvaldszs and i pronounce leenux as reeenoooox

>>38 is >>36