Arthur Pemberton wrote: > I have a computer science class mate who is interested in switching to > Linux, starting small with installing it and dual booting. He fits the > type that should be able to switch easiy: non-hardcore gamer, non > hardcore multimedia. I'd definitely recommend Fedora Core for computer science students. It has a boatload of development packages (as do the others, but in FC they are extremely easy to install). Kdevelop and Eclipse are available, as are all the standard tools. In addition, if you're in CS then you likely have a raft of mathematics classes to take including calculus, statistics, etc.. FC has the GNUPlot, Octave, R, and Maxima packages which I've found incredibly useful when tutoring these subjects. The packages are available for Ubuntu, but not in the default Synaptic "Mathematics" section (as of Ubuntu 6.0.6). To be clear, I'm impressed by Ubuntu. It's extremely easy to install and use for the normal stuff (Email, web, multimedia, wireless). Fedora has a slightly steeper learning curve, but it pays off when you need to do more elaborate things. As is true for any distro, you can make Ubuntu more Fedora-like and vice versa; it's just a matter of the default installation choices. -- * The Digital Hermit http://www.digitalhermit.com * Unix and Linux Solutions kwan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
