Newbie to forum. Want to discover linux

Thanks for having me.
I'm sure a simple search will answer all my initial questions.
I'm here because I'm interested in learning how to program and I've read that Linux is the best os to use for programming.
I'm interested in how I can use it.
Can I use it on my current laptop or do I need a new one?
I think I saw a post where someone had it on a flash drive?

Welcome!

1. Yes, Linux is great for programming because your entire stack is open source; this means you can look at (and re-use) the source code of things doing the same thing or a similar thing as what you are trying to do. That's a huge advantage and a great learning tool, and also a time-saver, since you don't have to spend hours re-inventing the wheel.


2. You can probably use it on your current laptop. There are many options; you can delete the current OS and install Linux, or you can dual-boot. The former is simpler but pretty drastic, the latter is more complex because you may have to configure things so that both your old OS and Linux are recognised at boot so that you can choose which one you want to boot into.

Personally I'm a "cold turkey" kinda guy; when I switched to Linux, I used Linux only on my main machine. I had a backup machine for school deadline emergencies, in case I couldn't figure something out on Linux, but in practise that ended up not happening and I just ended up using Linux for everything. It made things a lot easier in terms of fighting my old OS for a little bit of Gosh Darned flexibility, although there's still that Linux learning curve (as there is with anything new).


3. You can run Linux off of a thumbdrive. By nature, most Linux distributions have a "live" mode, but it's often just for the install process. Any data you generate in that mode gets erased when you reboot. Probably not what you want. So you want a "persistent" live boot system.

I ran on http://slax.org for a few months and it worked like a charm. Other distributions can be converted to "persistent" live systems. Here's a tutorial for Ubuntu: http://popey.com/blog/2015/03/25/mak...ntu-usb-stick/ and for Fedora: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_t...d_use_Live_USB

Welcome to the forum.

Welcome to the forums You can definitely use an old laptop to run Linux; just either create a new partition or wipe your old data and boot it up via USB.

Hello and welcome to the forum

Originally Posted by TomShea Thanks for having me. I'm sure a simple search will answer all my initial questions. I'm here because I'm interested in learning how to program and I've read that Linux is the best os to use for programming. I'm interested in how I can use it. Can I use it on my current laptop or do I need a new one? I think I saw a post where someone had it on a flash drive?

Instead I would like to thank YOU for joining the LQ community. Welcome!

Google and other search options are wonderful and an excellent first step. Fact is I discovered LQ due to using Google. People will also appreciate that you've tried to find answers to get yourself closer with your question.

Linux is a very good OS for programming. Typical installations of Linux usually contain tools for C and C++ compiling, and it is typically easy to install additional tools to do more. Plus other languages, including many scripts. There are a wide variety of options. There are on other OSes, just Linux for those who get comfortable with programming, I think find it to be a better environment.

You should be able to run it on your current laptop, there are sometimes exceptions that make it more difficult, however Linux has grown well over the years and mostly it just works with most systems.

As far as on a thumb drive, the answer is yes. You need not install it on a computer, you can run it from the thumb drive if you wish. You also can run Linux through virtual machine programs like VirtualBox, and either do this all the time, or do it for trial purposes to see what distributions you prefer.

Happy computing!

Originally Posted by TomShea Thanks for having me. I'm sure a simple search will answer all my initial questions. I'm here because I'm interested in learning how to program and I've read that Linux is the best os to use for programming. I'm interested in how I can use it. Can I use it on my current laptop or do I need a new one? I think I saw a post where someone had it on a flash drive?

Instead I would like to thank YOU for joining the LQ community. Welcome!

Google and other search options are wonderful and an excellent first step. Fact is I discovered LQ due to using Google. People will also appreciate that you've tried to find answers to get yourself closer with your question.

Linux is a very good OS for programming. Typical installations of Linux usually contain tools for C and C++ compiling, and it is typically easy to install additional tools to do more. Plus other languages, including many scripts. There are a wide variety of options. There are on other OSes, just Linux for those who get comfortable with programming, I think find it to be a better environment.

You should be able to run it on your current laptop, there are sometimes exceptions that make it more difficult, however Linux has grown well over the years and mostly it just works with most systems.

As far as on a thumb drive, the answer is yes. You need not install it on a computer, you can run it from the thumb drive if you wish. You also can run Linux through virtual machine programs like VirtualBox, and either do this all the time, or do it for trial purposes to see what distributions you prefer.

Happy computing!