I friend of mine would liek to get into Linux jsut for programming in java and then c and then C# but he doesnt want hard to install. He hates to type all of that stuff just to install a file lol. So is there a distro that can auto run most of the stuff but that has alot of editors and compliars for programming in thses langs. I was thinking of Linspire but im not to sure lol.

Mepis, Fedora Core, Mandriva, Suse, Xandros, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Puppy, DSL,
The list is endles...

Yes i know that there are any but. IS there one that can like auto run and install the package like Linspire or no? He hates taht crap and this is a school Project so we dont have time for this.

Any distro will fulfill that purpose. You have to remember that most desktop oriented distros like Linspire and Xandros don't install the developemnt stuff by default, so you may have to do this on your own. Try a few distros until you find the one that your friend likes.

I must say that the "good programming distro" that he/or maybe you want doesn't exist unless you or he creates it.

No distro as far as im aware comes with a java compiler. But, sun has rpms and stuff so its not hard

You might like to look at

https://www.scientificlinux.org/
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian.html (Main Site)

Sheng-Chieh

Why not just use Debian - it takes all of 10 minutes to get the install going, and about 15 minutes to 1 hour to install, depending on package selection. Synaptic will be your source for installing/removing packages.

If he doesn't like to work at a CLI, or type - apparently - for that matter, why is your friend even taking up programming?! I can only assume that the programming project for school is oriented to a Windows-based PC.

How does your friend want to learn java, c, c++, if he doesn't want to touch a bit of command line?

Slackware has it, in the /extra directory on the CDs & DVDs.

Debian comes with the Sun JDK (J2SE only - I think), too. You just have to modify /etc/apt/sources.list and add "non-free" and "contrib" to your default repository.

Ubuntu, like Debian, doesn't come with JDK by default but it is really easy to set up the repository. In fact, it's even easier on Ubuntu where repositories don't have to be looked up first and then manually added to sources.list; you can simply check a few boxes and that's it. I do not recommend Fedora for the simple reason that it doesn't offer JDK at all (although it has a java compatibility package) which means you have to fetch it from Sun and set it up yourself. That can actually be fun if you want to get to know Linux but it isn't if you want to get going in not time at all. Suse and Mandriva are more pragmatic and make good choices too, if only because they allow combining 32 and 64 bit in one system.

Installing Sun's JDK from their distributed Linux binary isn't all that hard - if my memory serves me correctly.

1. Download *-linux.bin file from Sun.
2. "chmod +x *-linux.bin"
3. "su -c ./*-linux.bin"
3a. Hit enter a few times, agree to that, hit enter a few more times...* ding * installation's finished.
4. Add the directory Java installed to, to your PATH env. var. - (in ~/.bashrc): export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/java/bin
5. "Enjoy" Java.

Yes, of course. What I had in mind was the work involved in setting up the alternatives if you have multiple java development kits installed: java, javac, javadoc, javah, jar, apt, etc etc. I don't fancy doing update-alternatives --install about thirty times for a single kit, then another thirty times for the next one, and so on.