A programmers laptop distro which likes small wm's.
Can you help me find a distro that works for me?
I left Ubuntu after an "update" threw the openGL files out of /usr/include and /usr/lib into some obscure directory in the include and lib trees. After I finally found the files, and after having to modify my makefile which worked perfectly days before, it never would link my programs, and got lots of undefined symbols. This is a fundamental problem I have with linux distros is 1, moving things around constantly, and 2, lacking any sense of compatibility or creating a "sane" build environment. I mean sane as in sanity not ./configure.
I have a similar issue with fedora 16. The gcc/g++ verion is so "new" that the majority of things I have tried to compile with it get "not declared in this scope" errors. (linley's dungeon crawl and zsnes, pillars of the linux gaming scene!), C apps are ok but C++ apps dont compile
So here is what I am looking for.
* ITs netbook, so laptop friendly, USB disk installer because it has no cdrom.
* A very General Distro that doesn't rely heavily on Unity/Gnome/KDE. I like to take the pieces from these I want, to create my frankenstin OS monster.
* I like to customize my system, try new things and dabble in programming. So:
1) Please at least include GCC and headers! lol. ( a developer centered distro) Also a majority of bleeding edge open source software is distributed in source form, and the only way to install is to compile it. /configure, make, make install. Not everything is expected to work but having a standard /usr/include(see 3) helps!
2) "standard" GNU tools would be nice. Its a pain to go package hunting for tools that have traditionally been in linux. (ex: gcc, grep, gmake, autoconf, etc) and since in fedora's case this "optional" tool is may be a requirement in thousands of packages, a search by name would be an very long query. Ubuntu has better package management.
3) more "standardized" file locations. I dont think moving foo.conf from /etc to /etc/foo/allfoos/fooorg/newxmlfoo/xml is an "improvement". This is a BIG issue for me, and one of the reasons I have used FreeBSD instead of linux for years. Every upgrade, i feel like a blind man who got his bedroom rearranged.
* Power management and Wireless that are NOT integrated into its flagship desktop, ubuntu and fedora have this issue. If I login to pekwm, I cant connect to the internet! I also cant put it into hibernate without making a script.
* Package management that is NOT integrated into its flagship desktop. Ex: fedora 16, attempting to install a flash update RPM from hackedbox, would not let me verify with a password and just said, you're not authorized. It was waiting for Gnome to ask for a password but there WAS NO GNOME!
More pluses
* Not even having a flagship desktop! I change window managers like underwear ( i like to experiment)
* Compatibility. I have ranted about this before, but you buy a Humble Bundle game, and cant seem to find a linux distro it works on, usually because the glibc is too new or too old etc. This is hard since linux is always changing so thats why this i a plus.
* Small but not minimalist. I like distros that are CD sized, my largest USB drive is 4GB so unfortunately i wont try slackware because it so large.
* Why split up runtime and development packages? Ex: the sourcecode for SDL is 3.7 megs. But I need to go package huting for SDL-devel/GL-devel, and everythingelse-devel in a lot of distros??? Does it really hurt to put tiny header files in /include?
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Re: A programmers laptop distro which likes small wm's.
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