Linux distros for development?

[Hi P]

My programming skills are nowhere near being job ready, I'm aware of that, but I've noticed that most job positions on this field require knowledge of Linux, so I thought I might as well give it a shot

 

But there are so many, where do I even begin? I did as any other rookie would do and I googled something along the lines "Best linux distros for developers", but too my surprise... the websites had different ranking lists, so it didn't help at all.

 

Does it even matter which one I pick?

Which one would you suggest?

 

I'm mainly using C / C++ and would like to learn SQL and Java, if that info matters at all (doubtful)

 

Thank you!

[mockedarche]

There isn't one i'd really say is better. The software for development kinda runs on any you'd actually use. If you're new to linux i'd suggest Ubuntu its in my opinion much easier out of the box. It has the best support in general. Just know if you use wifi it probably won't work until you fiddle with a driver or download one using Ubuntus software updater (additional drivers). Know its not like windows in a lot of aspects expect to need to do some tinkering.

[WereCatf]

13 minutes ago, Hi P said:

"Best linux distros for developers"

There is no such a thing. You can install all the programming-tools you want on ANY of the distros. Just pick Mint, or Ubuntu, or whatever the fuck you just simply happen to like.

[Hi P]

11 minutes ago, Ohsnaps said:

There isn't one i'd really say is better. The software for development kinda runs on any you'd actually use. If you're new to linux i'd suggest Ubuntu its in my opinion much easier out of the box. It has the best support in general. Just know if you use wifi it probably won't work until you fiddle with a driver or download one using Ubuntus software updater (additional drivers). Know its not like windows in a lot of aspects expect to need to do some tinkering.

then I might try Ubuntu

5 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

There is no such a thing. You can install all the programming-tools you want on ANY of the distros. Just pick Mint, or Ubuntu, or whatever the fuck you just simply happen to like.

Ohhhh, question, so working with Pi can be done on any distro? not only on distros like Raspbian?

[mockedarche]

1 minute ago, Hi P said:

then I might try Ubuntu

Ohhhh, question, so working with Pi can be done on any distro? not only on distros like Raspbian?

if you're gonna give linux a go i'd suggest actually using a desktop. Especially if you're going to develop on it.

[WereCatf]

Just now, Hi P said:

Ohhhh, question, so working with Pi can be done on any distro? not only on distros like Raspbian?

Raspbian ships with all the Pi-specific libraries out of the box, like e.g. the libraries to use the GPIO-pins. The other distros don't ship with all that stuff pre-installed, so you have to install them yourself, so if you want to play with Pi, it'd be best to go with Raspbian until you actually understand how to operate Linux and such. Besides, Raspbian is just a modified Debian.

[Dat Guy]

10 hours ago, Hi P said:

most job positions on this field require knowledge of Linux

That sounds horribly mistaken. In fact, most programming languages (except Microsoft's .NET which prefers Windows and Swift which works best on macOS) are perfectly portable. Stick with what you have.

 

10 hours ago, Hi P said:

so working with Pi can be done on any distro? not only on distros like Raspbian?

 

You can even use non-Linux systems on the Pi, like RISC OS, Plan 9, Windows 10 and several BSDs.

[Franck]

Any distro should be fine. You will however will find more support to possible problems if you use Ubuntu or Debian (or any derived distro based on those 2).

[wasab]

8 hours ago, Dat Guy said:

That sounds horribly mistaken. In fact, most programming languages (except Microsoft's .NET which prefers Windows and Swift which works best on macOS) are perfectly portable. Stick with what you have.

 

 

You can even use non-Linux systems on the Pi, like RISC OS, Plan 9, Windows 10 and several BSDs.

Windows 10 on pi? Good luck with that. 

[wasab]

Try using Arch/Manjaro simply because of the large AUR where you can grab any packages and drivers imaginable on there. 

 

In industry, you are probably gonna be ssh into Unix/Linux constantly, not necessarily that your computer will need to be Unix/Linux 

[Dat Guy]

8 hours ago, wasab said:

Windows 10 on pi? Good luck with that. 

It was not a recommendation.

 

I work as a Windows-centric developer though.

[Hi P]

5 hours ago, Dat Guy said:

It was not a recommendation.

 

I work as a Windows-centric developer though.

Do compilers work differently between OS?

 

A couple weeks ago I was testing data types on C, like uint8_t and others like that, it was compiling but not working properly, so I asked the tutor (online course), I copied and pasted the code directly and he said it was working just fine for him, on a Linux system.

 

Even if that's not the case, I will still install Ubuntu to try it out

 

Can I have both Win10 and Ubuntu on the same SSD?

[Dat Guy]

Yes, sometimes they do. GNU, for example, won't work well on Windows.

 

Yes, you can.

[Unimportant]

2 hours ago, Hi P said:

A couple weeks ago I was testing data types on C, like uint8_t and others like that, it was compiling but not working properly, so I asked the tutor (online course), I copied and pasted the code directly and he said it was working just fine for him, on a Linux system.

uint8_t is one of the fixed width integers that was added in C99. Their very purpose is to have fixed width integer types that behave the same on all platforms. As such, the problem with your test code was probably elsewhere. Perhaps it invoked undefined behavior or behavior which can be confusing to the beginner (such as implicit arithmetic conversions).

[Hi P]

3 hours ago, Unimportant said:

the problem with your test code was probably elsewhere

I agree, the problem could be somewhere else, but he didn't said anything about it, mind to take a quick look at it?

(this is trying to store a 1 byte integer using an unsigned char, the same problem applies to int8_t)

 

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
    unsigned char x, y;
    scanf("%hhu", &x);
    scanf("%hhu", &y);
    printf("%hhu + %hhu = %hhu", x, y, x + y);
}

 

If for example, I run it and enter the values 5 and 10 it prints: 0 + 10 = 10

Any idea why? I'd like to know

 

[Unimportant]

16 hours ago, Hi P said:

I agree, the problem could be somewhere else, but he didn't said anything about it, mind to take a quick look at it?

(this is trying to store a 1 byte integer using an unsigned char, the same problem applies to int8_t)

 

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
    unsigned char x, y;
    scanf("%hhu", &x);
    scanf("%hhu", &y);
    printf("%hhu + %hhu = %hhu", x, y, x + y);
}

 

If for example, I run it and enter the values 5 and 10 it prints: 0 + 10 = 10

Any idea why? I'd like to know

 

As already said in a earlier post, this is probably due to the C runtime library you bind to not handling the C99 extension type specifier "hhu" correctly.

[Nettly_]

Any distro can code. But just like how any distro can game, some can do it better. There are many distros that are better for devs than others, OpenSUSE for example runs smooth and there is good compilers (along with GNU stuff like GCC and G++). Ubuntu is also a good one especially if you plan on using .NET languages (like C#, Q#, M#, VB.NET) then Ubuntu (in my experience) has been the best option. However if this is pure Linux development then Fedora, OpenSUSE, Debian, and Arch are better options. Arch is also good for .NET but I have had many issues with Arch crashing.

In short focus on: Ubuntu, Debian, OpenSUSE, Arch and Fedora. Pick the one that suits your fancy, and use it!

[vorticalbox]

If you're after a ubuntu based distro I highly recommend popOS

 

https://system76.com/pop

[Nettly_]

34 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

If you're after a ubuntu based distro I highly recommend popOS

 

https://system76.com/pop

Yes Pop!_OS can do programming really well too, I forgot about it in my thing but yes Pop!_OS is also good

[Pinson]

22 hours ago, vorticalbox said:

If you're after a ubuntu based distro I highly recommend popOS

 

https://system76.com/pop

 

22 hours ago, SafyreLyons-5LT said:

Yes Pop!_OS can do programming really well too, I forgot about it in my thing but yes Pop!_OS is also good

Dropping into echo Pop!_OS. It's what I use at my job and it works great. Especially if you have a dedicated graphics card as it makes it really easy to get it working in Linux with easy ways to manually turn it on and off.

[vorticalbox]

On 7/1/2019 at 7:44 PM, Pinson said:

 

Dropping into echo Pop!_OS. It's what I use at my job and it works great. Especially if you have a dedicated graphics card as it makes it really easy to get it working in Linux with easy ways to manually turn it on and off.

I used it for a while at work but I like to jump around XD we use Jump Cloud at work so I am not limited to Ubuntu based distros again currently on Kubuntu as plasma is very nice