I am a programmer and am looking for the best Linux os for creating a POS system .

I am looking centos

There is no 'best'....pretty much ANY distro of Linux has all the same compilers/tools/environments you'll need to develop software. CentOS wouldn't be a good choice for a development workstation, simply because it's designed for SERVERS. If you're new to Linux, use Fedora or Mint...your software will be able to be compiled/run on any distro of Linux after you get it working.

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CentOS is not "designed for servers": it's a free version of Red Hat and so simply designed for enterprise use. Red Hat would not be pleased to have people being told that their product is unsuitable for the desktop (or laptop, either)!

Any distro is suitable for programming, as they all have the basic languages available.

There are a few open-source POS systems available for Linux:
http://linuxappfinder.com/tag/point-of-sale
Don't forget that with open-source you can take available software and customise it, saving time and money.

i use ScientificLinux on my desktops BUT it is not the main os i use
for that i use OpenSUSE

now for a pos the current CentOS 7.3 might be a good idea
like RHEL 7.3 it is ROCK solid and really will never crash

-- in the last 10 years of using cent and SL i have had ONE crash and I caused it

however seeing as you are NEW. I WOULD!!! strongly recommend you look at redhat and buy a support contract

then in a year or three when you are comfortable you can migrate to CentOS
-- cent makes it VERY easy to do - as in designed to do that

Which distribution will the POS system be deployed on?

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RHEL is designed for back-end servers, whether you think so or not.
https://www.redhat.com/en/resources/...e-linux-server
Then feel free to tell them what I said. RHEL *DOES* have a desktop version, which is as the label says..designed for desktops/laptops, but 99% of folks don't download that, they get the server version.
Right.
Providing the license agreement doesn't say you can't take the code and re-sell it.

thanks

i am looking at mint and centos and fedora

my clients are usually a one or two register system

i have been able to operate a one register and one back office on windows 7 no problem

i need to get off of windows

thanks again

dale

I think it'd be what you are using to program the OS more then what Linux/GNU OS you're using to program an OS that is more important. They all can have the tools to program and debug installed into them.


Maybe the desktop you pick to get around in while your Programming the OS could be looked at, tiling vs stacking or ones that can do both. So you can set up your Virtual desktop (VDT) in an order and just move from VDT to VDT - programming VDT NOTES VDT WebBrowser Search Window VDT debugging window VDT etc...

you still haven't answered this question:
which i think is rather important.

Use the i3 or Awesome tiling window managers to seamlessly switch between terminals/apps and modify their sizes. Try out Alpine Linux (a minimalistic security focused distro), and use Vim or Emacs text editors (these are the two best ones)... Oh and use the Oh-My-Zsh shell framework, it'll make life in the terminal that much better!

I hate to correct you TB0ne, because you are right a LOT, but in this case I think you are wrong.
When I was last at a Red Hat Summit Conference, all of the RHEL guys were running RHEL on Laptops, and it RIPPED! Nice desktop, nice speed (ok, they had primo hardware, but still), and they develop on those laptops. If it serves them that well for devlopment on laptops, I would never suggest that the OP (or any other developer) not consider that a strong option.


If I may add this: if you want strong support (as is a common requirement on company and corporate systems ), some excellent options are RHEL, SUSE (not OpenSUSE), Oracle Linux (if you are doing Oracle work), and Ubuntu. You should consider developing on something with a VERY STRONG match to the platforms that you expect to deploy on later.

rhel on a dev machine - yes
but as a everyday non work OS - not really

I never said it would not work, nor would it not work well. RHEL server IS designed for servers, and while you CAN get wifi/sound/bluetooth/whatever-consumer-gadget working on it with some playing around, that's not always guaranteed. And if you want such things to work right out of the box, you may be disappointed.

For a brand-new user, who is looking to develop things and just needs a GUI, and things to 'just work', along with the programming utilities/compilers/etc., then a free version like openSUSE, Mint, Ubuntu, or Fedora may be much better. You still easily have support for iSCSI, LVM, virtual machines, and all the other 'server' type goodies, but won't spend much (if any) time trying to get some piece of your rig working. If you do have to muddle with it, chances are some other person has tried it already (unless you're on bleeding-edge hardware/distro), and has advice or a solution.

My suggestion here for the OP was strictly based on them needing a development platform to write software on, as a new Linux user, and also bearing in mind that they would probably NOT purchase RHEL, and therefore wouldn't be getting access to the repos for yum installations, bugfixes, etc.