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  • Author Author: phoenixcomm
  • Date Created: Date Created
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A Dummies Guide to Linux on a Raspberry Pi. - 2.0 Distros

phoenixcomm

Distro? What in the world is that? And Why do I need it? It sounds like a disease!

Distro is a shortening of "distributions". There are many distros in the Linux world, some better than others, but that's in the eye of the beholder. And yes, you need to pick one. 

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On DistroWatch there are hundreds general distros listed, and there are more than that! Most of Distros listed there will run on a PC, Mac, and others, but wait; the Raspberry Pi is an ARM device (more about this later). So now what to do? I cheat. I looked at the Wikipedia or Wiki:

The Raspberry Pi primarily uses Linux-kernel-based operating systems. The ARM11 chip at the heart of the Pi (first generation models) is based on version 6 of the ARM. The current releases of several popular versions of Linux, including Ubuntu,[67] will not run on the ARM11. It is not possible to run Windows on the original Raspberry Pi,[68] though the new Raspberry Pi 2 will be able to run Windows 10.[69] The Raspberry Pi 2 currently only supports Ubuntu Snappy Core, Raspbian, OpenELEC and RISC OS.[70] The install manager for the Raspberry Pi is NOOBS.

The operating systems included with NOOBS are:

Other operating systems:

So why all of the distros? Well, it's people who tend to stay in camps or groups. You know once you get in your comfort zone you really don't want to change. Like myself, I personally hate Red Hat and won't use it. And I came from a different world. I have used Solaris on Sun Sparc platforms extensively. I have used OpenBSD for my firewall when I was an ISP in Dallas Texas. OpenBSD has never been penetrated. I currently have Linux Mint desktop. For the embedded space I use Arduino Mega, TI Stellaris LaunchPads. The common theme that ties them together is my development environment and my toolset. I am currently using Eclipse with the GNU/GCC toolset. I sometimes use the Arduino IDE as well.


The message here is PICK ONE AND STICK WITH IT. You don't want to get into the eclipse vs Visual studio problem that I had last year. It'll drive you nuts. But on my desktop I have several specialized versions of Eclipse: C/C++, Texas Instrument's Code Composer, Eclipse Modeling Project, and BridgePoint (uml).


OK, There are a lot of specialized kernels, such as OpenWrt, Kali Linux, Instant WebKisok, IPFire, and Mineplon. I will not go into deal with them at this time, but that shouldn't stop you from checking them out. So I'll concentrate my efforts on the following distros:

  1. Raspbian: this is the Raspberry Pi's native OS.
  2. Yocto Project: Yocto lets me pick and choose what parts of the kernel, and other things that I need to keep and generate a new (smaller) kernels.

Why these two you ask? Ok, one, I have never used Raspbian before as I never had one here, and it's nice to try something new once in a while. And now for Angstrom. I have used this distro on my Beagle Bone and really like it, and it's very fast.

 

 

  1. A Dummies Guide to Linux on a Raspberry Pi.
  2. A Dummies Guide to Linux on a Raspberry Pi. - 2.0 Distros
  3. TBA the reviews...


C Harrison.

  • I use Linux Mint on my home desktop, too. I started with raw Ubuntu, but found Mint to be very user friendly; just seems to do what I need without any particular effort on my part. And it made my computer absolutely fly compared to the Windows 7 it replaced!

  • in reply to DAB

    In those days maybe

    1. I only use the gnu tools inc gcc
    2. Sometimes just because you have the same machine with same OS patch levels are different. The reason is that Linux upgrades its self. via the Updater so if you don't lock the machine.. ie turn off the updater you might have a mess. just different libraries levels can give you grief.
    3. for the most part it does not happen.
    4. If you stay with the Synaptic Package Manager.. You should not run into troubles.  Synaptic is where you software is kept. so if you want to install xyz you would look for it Synaptic and then let it install it with all the dependencies. from the sound of your problem you did not have a good make file (ie not well planed out..
    5. As long as you stay in one platform (hardware) with the same software (OS) and software rev level ie LinuxMint 17.2 Enjoy!

    ~~ Cris

    BTW come on in water is fine!!

  • When I ran a group, I once sent a team to Australia to install a software patch.  We were promised that they had the same version that we had used for development.

    When my team arrived, they found out that the Australians were using a GNU version of Unix.

    My team tried to make it work, but in the end they departed and suggested that they purchase the right version of Unix.

     

    My customer was furious that the Australians had not fulfilled their promise, so now there sight was not up to date and they had to eat the cost of the travel.

     

    So I know you all mean well, but there are always two sides to every story.

    Regardless of which OS you use, you live with the limitations they present.

     

    I have heard many stories of regrets from developers of programs for Unix.

     

    I will not defend windows either, but one thing that windows did was to bring order out of the PC chaos in the 1970's and 1980's.

     

    It was not perfect, hell at times it wasn't even pretty, but a lot of people around to world get their day to day work done with minimum issues.

     

    As a user, I just want a system that I can turn on, use for my needs with a minimum of interruptions.

     

    Windows delivers that for me.

     

    DAB

  • in reply to ntewinkel

    Nico teWinkel wrote:

     

    I do wish there wasn't so much fragmentation in the Linux world. I found it rather confusing to immediately be faced with the question of which OS to install on my Raspberry Pi. I had to then research a bit and settled on Raspbian simply because that seemed to be the "standard" one, if there is such a thing.

    Personally, I'm not that picky about distros.  None of them do quite what I want, so none is ideal.  Since I'm developing and distributing free-as-in-freedom software, I figure I should run whichever distros my potential users are most likely to use so I can find problems before they do.  So I use Ubuntu on x86 PCs and ODROID-C1, Debian on BeagleBone, and Raspbian on RasPi.  I rather like the February 2015 version of Raspbian -- it's quite nice to use on a RasPi 2.  For the most part, I like "pure" Debian the best, but more people run Ubuntu so it is what it is.

     

    Fragmentation is indeed a bummer in the GNU/Linux world.  There's actually not much fragmentation at the Linux -- i.e., kernel -- level.  I think that's because Linux has a foul-mouthed benevolent dictator deciding what does and doesn't go into each Linux release.  It's the GNU level where there are multiple window managers and GUIs.  I think the GNU problem is that a lot of GNU system-level developers basically hate GUIs so they don't care if they're fragmented or not.

     

    That said, I far prefer GNU/Linux to Windows and use the former for my own development.  I'll use Windows if a client is paying me to do it.  It does mean I miss out on some interesting technology like Cypress PSoC which has Windows-only tools, but I figure that's their loss not mine image