Which distro is best for IT/CS person

[coder123]

I thought about making this a poll but decided not to because I want to see you guys comment. Do you guys think mint is suffice for IT and CS people or are they more suited for more advanced distros like Arch Linux and gentoo? As a CS person myself I personally think mint is suffice unless your looking be an OS developer (distro maker) in which case those more advanced distros should be fun for you. I haven't personally messed with those advanced distro but someday I will (at least Arch Linux since it has guides) but right now I'm more concerned about getting good at all other aspects besides OS making.

Edit: turned it into a poll since requested. Also for clarification CS people means developers.

[jimallyn]

The best distro, for me anyway, depends upon personal taste. I'm not a professional IT/CS person, but I have done a fair amount of both software and hardware engineering. Mint suits me well because I don't really want to have to fiddle with the computer much, I just want to get things done. Mint does that for me.

[BigEasy]

Do you guys think mint is suffice for IT and CS people or are they more suited for more advanced distros like Arch Linux and gentoo?

Who is IT and CS people and what they doing? It's right time for you to make a poll about it. We'll look at result then make conclusion about distro.

[coder123]

Do you guys think mint is suffice for IT and CS people or are they more suited for more advanced distros like Arch Linux and gentoo?

Who is IT and CS people and what they doing? It's right time for you to make a poll about it. We'll look at result then make conclusion about distro.

Done and explained above except for IT people. https://answers.yahoo.com/question/inde ... 409AAgq7Yi

[Ark987]

All boils down to which software is available in a distro, since Ubuntu and Debian are getting so much attention you can practically assure that most of the tools are available either from the software developer page or the main repositories. So Mint is suffice.

If you love to tweak your OS instead of doing the real work, that's another story. What I do miss in Linux is an alternative of http://www.mremoteng.org/, a comparable good one, not 'bug'-minna.

[BigEasy]

Done and explained above except for IT people. https://answers.yahoo.com/question/inde ... 409AAgq7Yi

I understood, you have no own idea about what IT people doing. So, why ask what OS they needed if you don't know who is they?
I inform you, IT people is veeery different people with veeery different tasks. Different tasks required different instruments (read different OSs).

[Pjotr]

Mint is good for everybody.

[BigEasy]

At least at home
A have another question with same sence: what car is best to own for car mechanic?

[xenopeek]

All distros have their merits. Which is the best fit for your needs only you can decide. The developers that I know to use Linux at my work are using either Linux Mint Cinnamon or Ubuntu Unity. But there are developers using every distro under the sun. Using one or another distro doesn't really matter for a developer, except where it best meets their needs and preferences. That's highly personal and you can do development efficiently on any distro I'd argue.

The same goes for maintenance people, though at my work I see them mostly using Windows on their laptops with the developers being the ones benefiting most from using Linux. (Compilation is significantly faster on Linux than it is on Windows, saving developers time, while for maintenance people there isn't such a benefit. And we do maintenance mostly on Unix servers; as we shift to Linux likely Linux on the laptops of maintenance people will become increasingly relevant.) For maintenance people that do use Linux, they might prefer a distro on their laptop from the same family as the distro used on the servers. i.e., if you're using RHEL on the servers you will likely feel most at home using something like CentOS or Fedora for your desktop. But that isn't a golden rule and many people are at home using distros from multiple families.

[scryan]

I thought about making this a poll but decided not to because I want to see you guys comment. Do you guys think mint is suffice for IT and CS people or are they more suited for more advanced distros like Arch Linux and gentoo? As a CS person myself I personally think mint is suffice unless your looking be an OS developer (distro maker) in which case those more advanced distros should be fun for you. I haven't personally messed with those advanced distro but someday I will (at least Arch Linux since it has guides) but right now I'm more concerned about getting good at all other aspects besides OS making.

Edit: turned it into a poll since requested. Also for clarification CS people means developers.

use a few, see what fits.

IMO, having run a bunch.... I found Arch so far to be the best platform for learning... Things are manual enough that you have to do it, and their wiki is AMAZING. Their wiki alone I think makes them the choice for learning, if you read line by line and follow it, I have found that it gives very accurate very complete information on how why and where for pretty much every aspect of the OS. Their forum is amazing too. Not necessarily a fuzzy place, and it probably leans closer to being elites jerks then kindness and welcoming... But they are very welcoming, and VERY helpful... They just expect that if there is a wiki page on something you read it, ask REAL question and do your own work to fix things... They will help when you are legitimately stuck, but laziness and or expecting hand holding will not get you very far.

Gentoo is very good too, and perhaps the build flags would force you to learn even more... But I didn't find their documentation to be as good. From what I have heard it used to be fantastic, better then Arch's... But whatever happened it was lost, and what is there now is only OK.

Other then that, its linux... And if your talking about people who ALREADY KNOW what they are doing.... You can go back and strip out what you don't want. You can uninstall mate and just run awesome, you can get rid of your display manager, ect...

So the difference becomes repositories, patches, up to date vs stability, and level of user intervention required.

I would think having used arch for a while that a system like it or gentoo, where you have a simple stable base you add as much to as you want would be appealing to the type you are asking about... But at the same time many may not want to spend all that time tweaking their system... They may just want a simple working computer. Oddly enough, I have found arch to be the most stable for me so far... But that is only because I understand my system pretty well, something that never had to be true with mint/Ubuntu... Plus when I don't, I don't have to dig through forum posts and hope it still works with my version... There is one, up to date, official(ish) source for the information that will be correct and work first time. Other may be more comfortable with a certain init system,ect that would make them more comfortable on some other distro...

So its a lot like other "what distro is best" threads... Sure IT/CS... but tbh user preferences will dictate this more then simply field of study.

[coder123]

I thought about making this a poll but decided not to because I want to see you guys comment. Do you guys think mint is suffice for IT and CS people or are they more suited for more advanced distros like Arch Linux and gentoo? As a CS person myself I personally think mint is suffice unless your looking be an OS developer (distro maker) in which case those more advanced distros should be fun for you. I haven't personally messed with those advanced distro but someday I will (at least Arch Linux since it has guides) but right now I'm more concerned about getting good at all other aspects besides OS making.

Edit: turned it into a poll since requested. Also for clarification CS people means developers.

use a few, see what fits.

IMO, having run a bunch.... I found Arch so far to be the best platform for learning... Things are manual enough that you have to do it, and their wiki is AMAZING. Their wiki alone I think makes them the choice for learning, if you read line by line and follow it, I have found that it gives very accurate very complete information on how why and where for pretty much every aspect of the OS. Their forum is amazing too. Not necessarily a fuzzy place, and it probably leans closer to being elites jerks then kindness and welcoming... But they are very welcoming, and VERY helpful... They just expect that if there is a wiki page on something you read it, ask REAL question and do your own work to fix things... They will help when you are legitimately stuck, but laziness and or expecting hand holding will not get you very far.

Understandable. I've been in places where the members expect a lot so nowadays I feel very bad when I screw up like that.

Gentoo is very good too, and perhaps the build flags would force you to learn even more... But I didn't find their documentation to be as good. From what I have heard it used to be fantastic, better then Arch's... But whatever happened it was lost, and what is there now is only OK.

Ok thanks I didn't know gentoo had gone downhill.

Other then that, its linux... And if your talking about people who ALREADY KNOW what they are doing.... You can go back and strip out what you don't want. You can uninstall mate and just run awesome, you can get rid of your display manager, ect...

So the difference becomes repositories, patches, up to date vs stability, and level of user intervention required.

yeah repos vs user intervention seems to be the major tradeoff between distros. Mint comes the closest to having the best of both worlds in that case.

[BigEasy]

So , your initial question should be rewritten as: "is IT/CS person like much user interventions?"

[coder123]

So , your initial question should be rewritten as: "is IT/CS person like much user interventions?"

LOL no, I meant what I wrote. xenopeek pretty much answered it because the question is based off the wonder that advanced distos like Arch were more suited for developers. Given what scryon said I'm looking forward to messing with Arch but purely for fun. I'd never rely on it for stability because I heard from youtube videos how the smallest install could break it. So I'm glad to see that most of you say Mint is suffice.

[DrHu]

I don't think we can call any Linux distibution more advanced

Anyone (not just IT/CS) can dig into the underlying OS (Kernel + Apps) who wishes to
--for example digging into Ubuntu's upstart process would be just as informative as doing the same for Debian's RC (run levels)

And one could always concentrate on shell (bash) or python scripting and get far (deep) into the Linux OS being used..
--you can always consult the kernel developers and operate in that realm..

The advantage that friendly Linux OS distributions offer is just that: more ease of use and less user action required to get a running and friendly OS to function

If you wanted unfriendly look at the *BSD distributions
--they do require work to function well; and of course are not Linux, so are missing from the general understanding of what a UNIX style system can do

• Also missing all the development APPs action..

--nevertheless *BSD can run Linux OS apps, the reverse isn't the case: and PORTS is a pretty good repository system.

I like Pjotr's reply
"Mint is good for everybody"

That's as simple as it gets, and is true enough
--but I sometimes like to see these polls, whether or not I think the question is that relevant

[coder123]

I don't think we can call any Linux distibution more advanced

From the distro developer perspective yes that's correct no distro is more advanced than any other. I was referring to the user perspective.

[phd21]

Hi coder123 and everyone else,

Interesting topic. I read your original post and the very good replies.

Here are my thoughts on this as well. I think the decision on which operating system (OS) you choose is obviously up to you, as this seems to be a personal type preference. I have been in the computer field (IT) for decades as a software developer, computer consultant (hardware and software), networking, maintenance, business admin, etc... I did not know what you meant by "CS"; to me that meant "Computer Scientist", not necessarily a developer.

I think Linux Mint are great operating systems and are more than sufficient; any of them can be used for learning and for development because you can add whatever tools that you want or need to them. They are all wonderful computer operating systems in my opinion.

I personally prefer the Linux Mint KDE operating system because I can customize almost any aspect of it the way I want, and there is a huge base of users and extensive KDE documentation available to anyone. So far, I have been able to do almost anything I want to do that this computer can do that I used to do with any version of MS Windows, including programming MS WIndows stuff under Linux Mint. I was even able to use the "DOS emulator" to bring up older DOS programs and run them (which I did just to see if they would work and they worked well, including networking). If I had a newer better more powerful computer(s) I could do even more. And although I really do not feel like programming (software development) much any more, I am considering "dabbling" with some open source Linux programming languages to maybe create some stuff for these wonderful Linux Mint operating systems even though they have most everything you could want already available.

[Habitual]

Linux Mint just works. Period.

Code: Select all

System:    Host: my-kungfu Kernel: 3.13.0-37-generic x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: Xfce 4.11.8
           Distro: Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca
Machine:   System: Gigabyte product: N/A
           Mobo: Gigabyte model: Z77-DS3H v: x.x Bios: American Megatrends v: F7 date: 07/12/2012
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA GK106 [GeForce GTX 660]
           Display Server: X.Org 1.15.1 drivers: nouveau (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1920x1080@60.0hz, 1920x1080@60.0hz
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on NVE6 GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.3
Network:   Card-1: Intel 82574L Gigabit Network Connection driver: e1000e
           Card-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR8161 Gigabit Ethernet driver: alx

I didn't cast a poll 'vote' as I consider these to be frivolous.

An IT Professional.

[scryan]

Ok thanks I didn't know gentoo had gone downhill.

Errr... I don't know that gentoo has "gone downhill" the OS going strong... They just lost a large chunk of documentation a number of years ago... Sounds a bit wrong to say the whole thing has gone down hill.

[coder123]

Also I want to add for those who think this poll is ridiculous. Aside from what I already said I also made this poll because of things like the description of gentoo on distrowatch which says that it was developed for developers.

[BigEasy]

I so lazy to check what distrowatch saying about gentoo, but I know that gentoo.org say different.