[GRASSLIST:8905] Re: Off Topic (Somewhat): Most commonly supported Linux Distro for Gr ass usage?

[Hamish]

> >  I am seriously considering
> > partitioning my hard drive to be able to run Linux on my
> > workstation.
> > 
> > Can anyone who has done this recommend the 'best' method (i.e.,
> > least likely to destroy my hard drive) of doing this? Partition
> > Magic seems to get high scores when Googled. But I would prefer
> > using an open-source tool for doing this, I'm just apprehensive
> > about software stability.

New hard drives are cheap, you can unplug your Windows one while you
play around with the new Linux partitions without fear of messing things
up too badly. Probably best to have the Windows disk plugged in when you
do your proper install so it auto detects a dual boot setup for you.

Personnaly I like cfdisk run from a knoppix bootable CD for
partitioning, even on a system which will only be running windows.
Pretty much any modern linux distribution will come with a very usable
partition tool built in. Often (& usually IMO) the low level open source
software will be of higher quality and stability than 3rd party
commercial windows software.. even the official MS provided stuff...
the caveat is that it generally assumes you know what you are doing and
doesn't give you as many safety nets.


> > which Linux
> > flavor is the most supported, if that question even makes sense. Or,
> > which version do the developers and other old hands use?

All of the major ones should be fine. Check on the downloads page for
which ones have 6.0.1 packages already made, that will give you an
indication of what is popularly used. Mind the versions.

Others have mentioned Gentoo and Debian, neither of which is targeted at
newcomers. Dylan mentioned Ubuntu, which is (simplisticly put) Debian
built to be user friendly while still taking advantage of Debian's great
infrastructure. Installing GRASS on Debian & Debian derivatives is
simple: "apt-get install grass", but it may be just as easy on other
systems. Linux is free, so try one and if you don't like it try another
until you find something you like.

> > I want to be able to do away with Cygwin altogether and be able to
> > download/compile the latest cvs releases.

Well then which ever distro you use will need some level of nitty
gritty which levels the distro playing field a bit...


> So, if want to start man writing, I should recommend you go the Debian
> way. The current stable release is just some months old, and the
> testing version (which I am using) is pretty stable. Not the most
> current packages though. Hamish may be able to explain his setup. If I
> recall right he is the grass package maintainer for Debian.

I am not the Debian maintainer. Steve Halasz and Francesco Lovergine are
responsible for the Debian package, but a number of other DebianGIS
folks help out too. DebianGIS will for the near future be backporting
some important packages for Debian/Stable (GRASS, QGIS, etc..) which
mitigates the "packages are too old" issue. I'm a big fan, but Debian
may not be for everyone..
 http://packages.debian.org/grass
 http://pkg-grass.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl


good luck,
Hamish