OT - Which Linux?

[JPF]

Paul D. Anderson wrote:
> I'm going to add Linux to my PC to get a dual-boot configuration. (I'm tired of sloooow start ups and want to tap into the great tools available.) The tutorial I'm looking at suggests Ubuntu. Is there a significant difference in Linux implementations? Is Ubuntu one of the better ones? Does it make a difference for running D2?
> 
> Thanks in advance for your hellp.
> 
> Paul
> 

One big difference in Linux distributions is the age of
packages(software). There are rolling release distributions like Gentoo,
Archlinux or Fedora Rawhide and release based distributions (Ubuntu,
Fedora, Opensuse, Debian stable). Rolling release distributions publish
new program versions as soon as possible (often just a few days after
release). Release based distributions get big package upgrades only with
new releases (likely every half year, for some distributions even longer.)

There also often is an difference in available packages. Ubuntu has, due
to its popularity, lots of additional software in ppas which smaller
distributions might not have available. Ubuntu also has the best
documentation due to its big community, but most documentation is valid
for other distributions as well. Ubuntu is said to be one of the easiest
        distributions, especially regarding installation.

I personally used Ubuntu a lot, but having compiz (a 3d window manager,
which can draw 'burning' effects when you close windows, and similar
stuff) as default scared me away. I now use Archlinux, which is much
like gentoo in the 'you learn lots of things' sense, but in difference
to gentoo arch uses prebuild binary packages. Especially nice about arch
 is the way you build packages: It's basically the same as building
packages from source, and i think it's the easiest way to create own
packages on linux. Arch has aur, an repository of user supplied
packages, which means you usually find packages for the program you
need. Due to it's rolling release system, it has great support for
svn/mercurial/git/cvs/bzr packages. Compiling the latest svn version of
some software is very easy, if there are PKGBUILDS(a file which tells
arch how to build a package from source) available in AUR.

Arch linux is more complicated as ubuntu thought. You have to do more
stuff by yourself, there are less configuration GUIs, you often have to
edit config files with an text editor. Some things might break after
updates(that happens very rarely) and you might experience more bugs as
you get new packages earlier as people using other distributions.
Probably the worst thing is the first installation. Arch only installs a
minimal subset of programs (No graphical user interface for example).
Knowing what you have to install to get a feature involves searching
wikis, forums and so on. It's easier if someone gives you a package list
for a certain configuration.

Regarding D I can say we have dmd (1, latest) tango(latest) and phobos
(latest) as official packages. LDC (latest, with tango), GDC(0.24 /
svn), phobos2(latest), tango(svn) and dmd(2, latest) are available from
AUR. We have the latest eclipse, latest descent can be installed via
eclipses package manager.