Which Linux is best on lab top

Which Linux is best on lab top

[Anh Vo]

I seeking your advice on which linux should be best for my lab top
since most you are Linux experts beside Ada Gurus. I recently
purchased a lab top. I plan to install Linux on the second hard drive
which has 100 GB.

I am looking for a Linux flavor with easy setup, more driver support
and auto update. Red Hat is not quite good on these areas. Ubunto
Linux does provide these capabilities according what I have read and
heard. However, I would like to hear from the experts who have been
using it. Thanks.

AV

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Jeffrey Creem]

Anh Vo wrote:
> I seeking your advice on which linux should be best for my lab top
> since most you are Linux experts beside Ada Gurus. I recently
> purchased a lab top. I plan to install Linux on the second hard drive
> which has 100 GB.
> 
> I am looking for a Linux flavor with easy setup, more driver support
> and auto update. Red Hat is not quite good on these areas. Ubunto
> Linux does provide these capabilities according what I have read and
> heard. However, I would like to hear from the experts who have been
> using it. Thanks.
> 
> AV
> 

Yipes! The only thing as likely as a language flame war is a 
distribution flame war!

If you care about Ada support under Linux, it sure seems as if debian is 
the way to go. While the gnuada project has many packages available for 
a few different Unix platforms, I still think the work that is being 
done in debian is top notch.

I have been running centos 4 for a while and recently started migrating 
to centos 5. Centos combined with rpmforge is a pretty compelling target 
in that you get the stability of the redhat enterprise packages and 
still have access to some bleeding edge items.

Centos includes yum and is very easy to update.

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Georg Bauhaus]

On Tue, 2007-04-24 at 22:24 -0400, Jeffrey Creem wrote:

> If you care about Ada support under Linux, it sure seems as if debian is 
> the way to go.

Yeah. See also http://www.ada-france.org/debian/debian-ada-policy.html
You will not typically find this Ada setup with other
distributions. Being based on Debian, Ubuntu is similar, though.

A few days ago, I had an opportunity to install the new Debian 4
in a VMWare virtual machine on top of W2K. A surprisingly swift
combination (Debian seems to be "VM aware").

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Pascal Obry]

I definitely like GNU/Debian. This is a community oriented distribution,
works great, many packages and we have very good Ada support in
GNU/Debian, thanks to Ludovic! So why not give it a try ?

I have installed GNU/Debian in many laptops, last one was a Dell M65.

Pascal.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|              http://www.obry.net
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
--|
--| gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-key C1082595

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Alex R. Mosteo]

Anh Vo wrote:

> I seeking your advice on which linux should be best for my lab top
> since most you are Linux experts beside Ada Gurus. I recently
> purchased a lab top. I plan to install Linux on the second hard drive
> which has 100 GB.
> 
> I am looking for a Linux flavor with easy setup, more driver support
> and auto update. Red Hat is not quite good on these areas. Ubunto
> Linux does provide these capabilities according what I have read and
> heard. However, I would like to hear from the experts who have been
> using it. Thanks.

If I'm not mistaken, Debian is the only distro with a dedicated Ada
maintainer (thanks Ludovic). And Debian is a great distribution.

You have too the option to choose to be a bit more on the edge and use
ubuntu, since it inherits from debian. I'm now writing from a kubuntu
laptop while my project compiles in the background. Just a point for your
sample. 

I have never installed debian; ubuntu family is really easy.

I've used Ada equally without problems in debian (in embedded x86 in robots,
where we use debian stable) and in kubuntu (in my laptop and workstations),
although I use mostly the libre site packages and not the ones from the
distro.

Perhaps you should check which one supports better your laptop hardware,
there may be some particularities.

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Ludovic Brenta]

Anh Vo writes:
> I am looking for a Linux flavor with easy setup, more driver support
> and auto update. Red Hat is not quite good on these areas. Ubunto
> Linux does provide these capabilities according what I have read and
> heard. However, I would like to hear from the experts who have been
> using it. Thanks.

Like others have said, it really boils down to Debian or Ubuntu.

People installing Ubuntu usually download a new 650-meg ISO image and
reistall from scratch every 6 months.  Only a few of them know about
the better alternative, which is...

People installing Debian usually install only once, and upgrade in
place whenever they want.  They choose between stable, testing and
unstable and track that.

Neither Debian nor Ubuntu have auto-upgrade, because Debian doesn't do
things behind people's back.  You ask for an upgrade explicitly, when
you choose to, and it is very easy because APT tracks dependencies and
preserves your configuration files.  I have a machine at home where I
installed Debian 3.0 "Woody" in late 2002 and never reinstalled since
(this machine doesn't boot from CD or network and its diskette drive
died since, so I *couldn't* reinstall from scratch even if I wanted
to).  It now runs Debian 4.0 "Etch".  The same holds for my two
laptops (first installed in March 2004 and November 2006 respectively,
and constantly upgraded to track Etch).

The Ada toolchain is not on the Ubuntu CD-ROMs; you have to install
from the network.

The Ada toolchain is on the Debian CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs; you can
install either from there or from the network.

I do not receive bug reports filed against Ubuntu, or read the Ubuntu
mailing lists or forums.  But I do see the Debian bug reports and I am
on Debian mailing lists (e.g. debian-gcc@lists.debian.org).

So my advice is: go with Debian, the mother of all distributions.  Why
use a derivative when you can have the original? Of course you may
think I'm biased.  I'm not.  I chose Debian in 2002 because it was the
largest distribution and because it was possible for outsiders like me
to contribute.  If things changed, I would consider switching again,
but so far Debian has kept its promises.

PS. Thanks to Jeffrey, Georg, Pascal and Alex for the kudos.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Pascal Obry]

Ludovic,

> Neither Debian nor Ubuntu have auto-upgrade, because Debian doesn't do

Yes and no. GNOME provides an updater applet which can be configured :

1. to download and install softwares automatically
2. download but ask before installing
3. notify when new software versions are available to download

I'm using option 3 on the testing branch. Stable enough (read no problem
since 3 years) for what I'm doing.

Pascal.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|              http://www.obry.net
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
--|
--| gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-key C1082595

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Ludovic Brenta]

Pascal Obry writes:
> Ludovic,
>
>> Neither Debian nor Ubuntu have auto-upgrade, because Debian doesn't do
>
> Yes and no. GNOME provides an updater applet which can be configured :
>
> 1. to download and install softwares automatically
> 2. download but ask before installing
> 3. notify when new software versions are available to download
>
> I'm using option 3 on the testing branch. Stable enough (read no problem
> since 3 years) for what I'm doing.

Thanks.  I wouldn't know, since I use neither GNOME nor KDE :) I
usually only have emacs and galeon full-screen on IceWM.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

RE: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Vo, Anh (US SSA)]

Thank you all for your great advice.

My implied and top requirements are good Ada support. Debian is clearly
better than Ubuntu in this area. Therefore, combined with your comments,
I have decided to go with Debian. By the way, my labtop is a Toshiba
A135-S4487. I hope Debian has no problem to support this hardware.

AV

-----Original Message-----
From: comp.lang.ada-bounces@ada-france.org
[mailto:comp.lang.ada-bounces@ada-france.org] On Behalf Of Ludovic
Brenta
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 4:54 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org
Subject: Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

Pascal Obry writes:
> Ludovic,
>
>> Neither Debian nor Ubuntu have auto-upgrade, because Debian doesn't
do
>
> Yes and no. GNOME provides an updater applet which can be configured :
>
> 1. to download and install softwares automatically
> 2. download but ask before installing
> 3. notify when new software versions are available to download
>
> I'm using option 3 on the testing branch. Stable enough (read no
problem
> since 3 years) for what I'm doing.

Thanks.  I wouldn't know, since I use neither GNOME nor KDE :) I
usually only have emacs and galeon full-screen on IceWM.

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Michael Bode]

Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes:

> Like others have said, it really boils down to Debian or Ubuntu.

I had a wierd problem with an Ada app with Ubuntu 6.10 (gnat
4.1.15). Fixed it by installing Debian 4 (gnat 4.1.22). I'm writing
this on a Thinkpad R51 running Debian 4. Support for suspend and the
lid switches was there out of the box with Ubuntu and has to be
installed manually in Debian. But the Ada support in Debian makes up
for that :-)

> People installing Ubuntu usually download a new 650-meg ISO image and
> reistall from scratch every 6 months.  Only a few of them know about
> the better alternative, which is...

You can update Ubuntu they same way you do with Debian. I was quite
impressed when I startet a dist-upgrade on Ubuntu on Friday afternoon
and forgot that the machine was scheduled to shut down at 20:00 while
the update was in full progress (lots of packages to download on a
1mBit link). I started the machine on Monday morning and it booted
into Gnome from where I started the updater and it finished the
dist-upgrade flawlessly.

-- 
No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law. 
He simply follows the eleventh commandment.
-- R.A. Heinlein

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Nick]

I would just like to throw in here that Ubuntu does use the same
version of GNAT that was in Debian Sid (unstable) before the freeze
and so it should be the same version version as in Debian.  The
current GNAT version in Ubuntu is 4.1.2-1ubuntu1 which is only one
patch different then Debian so it should work the same.  Basically the
biggest difference for me is if you want the latest Gnome or KDE use
Ubuntu and if you don't really care you might as well go with Debian.

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Ludovic Brenta]

Nick writes:
> I would just like to throw in here that Ubuntu does use the same
> version of GNAT that was in Debian Sid (unstable) before the freeze
> and so it should be the same version version as in Debian.  The
> current GNAT version in Ubuntu is 4.1.2-1ubuntu1 which is only one
> patch different then Debian so it should work the same.  Basically
> the biggest difference for me is if you want the latest Gnome or KDE
> use Ubuntu and if you don't really care you might as well go with
> Debian.

That is true, but pay attention to the release schedules.

We're looking at a release of Debian "Lenny" in October 2008.  That
will be my overriding goal.  In the mean time, I expect GCC 4.2 to be
released and a large-scale transition to take place.  Then, GNAT GPL
2007 will probably cause another transition.  If GCC 4.3 releases
reasonably soon before the compiler freeze in mid-2008, there will be
a third transition, and possibly a fourth transition if GNAT GPL 2008
releases soon enough.

During each transition, Ada in Debian unstable deserves its name:
UNSTABLE, in big neon letters.  In the Lenny time frame, Ubuntu will
probably want to release 7.10, 8.04 and 8.10.  Each time, it runs the
risk of taking a snapshot of Debian unstable at an unfortunate point
in time, and to ship broken Ada packages.

So far, one person has volunteered to monitor the Ada packages in
Ubuntu and see to it that they are not too broken.  This person is
Matthias Klose, the principal maintainer of GCC, Python and other
things in both Debian and Ubuntu.  If you look at the lists of
packages he maintains[1,2], you'll understand he may not be able to
give Ada all the love and care she deserves.  Of course, he keeps in
touch with me to make Ubuntu releases relatively stable, but with so
many transitions on the horizon, he might just not be able to.

[1] http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=Matthias+Klose&comaint=yes
[2] https://launchpad.net/~doko

If you want a stable and supported distribution, use Debian stable.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Ludovic Brenta]

Anh Vo writes:
> Thank you all for your great advice.
>
> My implied and top requirements are good Ada support. Debian is clearly
> better than Ubuntu in this area. Therefore, combined with your comments,
> I have decided to go with Debian. By the way, my labtop is a Toshiba
> A135-S4487. I hope Debian has no problem to support this hardware.

I have not found any reports of Debian installations on this hardware.
This is probably a very recent model.  When you complete the
installation, please help Debian by filing a bug against the
seudo-package 'installation-report', as the installer suggests.  You
can do that either from the installer, or later.

Have you installed Debian yet?

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

RE: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Vo, Anh (US SSA)]

-----Original Message-----
From: comp.lang.ada-bounces@ada-france.org
[mailto:comp.lang.ada-bounces@ada-france.org] On Behalf Of Ludovic
Brenta
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 4:56 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org
Subject: Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

>Anh Vo writes:
>> Thank you all for your great advice.
>>
>> My implied and top requirements are good Ada support. Debian is
clearly
>> better than Ubuntu in this area. Therefore, combined with your
comments,
>> I have decided to go with Debian. By the way, my labtop is a Toshiba
>> A135-S4487. I hope Debian has no problem to support this hardware.

> I have not found any reports of Debian installations on this hardware.
> This is probably a very recent model.  When you complete the
> installation, please help Debian by filing a bug against the
> seudo-package 'installation-report', as the installer suggests.  You
> can do that either from the installer, or later.

> Have you installed Debian yet?

The DVDs are in order. I hope they will be arriving today or tomorrow.

AV

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[george]

Alex R. Mosteo wrote:
> If I'm not mistaken, Debian is the only distro with a dedicated Ada
> maintainer (thanks Ludovic).

Well, you are, Gentoo is the other one. The main difference from
Debian is the ability to install multiple Ada compilers in parallel
(AdaCores's, FSF's and various "SLOTs" (that is, based on different
major backend versions) thereof) and select the active one "on the
fly" (similarly to what we have for gcc). The selection of packages
differs somewhat, although it is mostly the same common stuff:
http://packages.gentoo.org/packages/?category=dev-ada

Of course then there is also an issue of how much control over the
installation is desired. That is to say, one should be aware of other
Gentoo distinctions if there is any thought of selecting that
distribution.

George

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Alex R. Mosteo]

george@gentoo.org wrote:

> Alex R. Mosteo wrote:
>> If I'm not mistaken, Debian is the only distro with a dedicated Ada
>> maintainer (thanks Ludovic).
> 
> Well, you are, Gentoo is the other one. 

(...)

Glad to stand corrected on this point :)

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Anh Vo]

On Apr 30, 8:11 am, "Vo, Anh \(US SSA\)" <Anh...@baesystems.com>
wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: comp.lang.ada-boun...@ada-france.org
> [mailto:comp.lang.ada-boun...@ada-france.org] On Behalf Of Ludovic
> Brenta
> Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 4:56 AM
> To: comp.lang....@ada-france.org
> Subject: Re: Which Linux is best on lab top
>
> >Anh Vo writes:
> >> Thank you all for your great advice.
>
> >> My implied and top requirements are good Ada support. Debian is
> clearly
> >> better than Ubuntu in this area. Therefore, combined with your
> comments,
> >> I have decided to go with Debian. By the way, my labtop is a Toshiba
> >> A135-S4487. I hope Debian has no problem to support this hardware.
>
> > I have not found any reports of Debian installations on this hardware.
> > This is probably a very recent model.  When you complete the
> > installation, please help Debian by filing a bug against the
> > seudo-package 'installation-report', as the installer suggests.  You
> > can do that either from the installer, or later.
>
> > Have you installed Debian yet?
>
> The DVDs are in order. I hope they will be arriving today or tomorrow.

Finally, these DVDs came through the mail yesterday, several days late
than expected. I am going to install them pretty soon.

Regarding filing a bug against the seudo-package 'installation-
report', could you explain? Does it mean Debian does not work properly
on my labtop currently? and this bug report will document this
problem? Please enlighten me? Thanks.

AV

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Ludovic Brenta]

Anh Vo writes:
> Regarding filing a bug against the seudo-package 'installation-
> report', could you explain? Does it mean Debian does not work
> properly on my labtop currently? and this bug report will document
> this problem? Please enlighten me? Thanks.

No, I didn't say Debian will not work on your laptop.  I don't know
that.

What I meant is: The installer will offer you the option to report how
your installation went.  It can be good or bad depending on your
hardware.  The vehicle for the report is a pseudo-package in the
Debian bug tracking system; you open a "bug" to say how your
installation went.  For examples, see two reports that were made
recently:

http://bugs.debian.org/415953  (all went well)
http://bugs.debian.org/420255  (problem partitioning the hard drive)

The main benefit is that the installer prefills the installation
report with information about your hardware.  Sending an installation
report fills the "database" of known-good and known-bad hardware.  The
"database" is the BTS at

http://bugs.debian.org/installation-reports

HTH

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Anh Vo]

On May 9, 12:45 pm, Ludovic Brenta <ludo...@ludovic-brenta.org> wrote:
> Anh Vo writes:
> > Regarding filing a bug against the seudo-package 'installation-
> > report', could you explain? Does it mean Debian does not work
> > properly on my labtop currently? and this bug report will document
> > this problem? Please enlighten me? Thanks.
>
> No, I didn't say Debian will not work on your laptop.  I don't know
> that.
>
> What I meant is: The installer will offer you the option to report how
> your installation went.  It can be good or bad depending on your
> hardware.  The vehicle for the report is a pseudo-package in the
> Debian bug tracking system; you open a "bug" to say how your
> installation went.  For examples, see two reports that were made
> recently:
>
> http://bugs.debian.org/415953 (all went well)http://bugs.debian.org/420255 (problem partitioning the hard drive)
>
> The main benefit is that the installer prefills the installation
> report with information about your hardware.  Sending an installation
> report fills the "database" of known-good and known-bad hardware.  The
> "database" is the BTS at

Thank you very much for your clear explanation. In addition, my report
will be coming soon.

AV

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Keith Thompson]

Anh Vo <anhvofrcaus@gmail.com> writes:
[...]
> Regarding filing a bug against the seudo-package 'installation-
> report', could you explain? Does it mean Debian does not work properly
> on my labtop currently? and this bug report will document this
> problem? Please enlighten me? Thanks.

I usually ignore spelling errors, but this one could be confusing, and
it appears both in the subject header and in your article.

By "labtop", I presume you mean "laptop" (i.e., a notebook computer),
not a computer to be used in a lab (laboratory).

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center             <*>  <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
"We must do something.  This is something.  Therefore, we must do this."
    -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"

Re: Which Linux is best on lab top

[Anh Vo]

On May 9, 2:02 pm, Keith Thompson <k...@mib.org> wrote:
>
> I usually ignore spelling errors, but this one could be confusing, and
> it appears both in the subject header and in your article.
>
> By "labtop", I presume you mean "laptop" (i.e., a notebook computer),
> not a computer to be used in a lab (laboratory).

Clearly it is a typo. Since I use it as my portable lab, so this name
fits the purpose :-)

AV