What Linux distribution to choose for learning Ruby and Ruby on Rails

ruby-talk
1

Hi!

I apologize forward for somewhat dumb question...

I am just another programmer whose (relatively successful) ASP.NET career
was somewhat disrupted by encountering Ruby/Ruby on Rails few months ago. So
far I learned and used Ruby just on Windows, but now I decided o give it try
also on Linux.

So, what Linux distribution would you recommend for programmer who have
master degree in CS, 10+ years experience as achitect/programmer on Windows
(C++, C#, ASP.NET, MS SQL Server), good understanding of system programming
concepts, but no Linux experience? I look forward to using Linux mainly for
learning more Ruby and Ruby on Rails programming.

thanks in advance!
slavo.

2

Slavo Furman wrote:

Hi!

I apologize forward for somewhat dumb question...

I am just another programmer whose (relatively successful) ASP.NET career
was somewhat disrupted by encountering Ruby/Ruby on Rails few months ago. So
far I learned and used Ruby just on Windows, but now I decided o give it try
also on Linux.

So, what Linux distribution would you recommend for programmer who have
master degree in CS, 10+ years experience as achitect/programmer on Windows
(C++, C#, ASP.NET, MS SQL Server), good understanding of system programming
concepts, but no Linux experience? I look forward to using Linux mainly for
learning more Ruby and Ruby on Rails programming.

thanks in advance!
slavo.

debian or ubuntu - ubuntu is based on debian and is more widnows like with graphical installers and stuff, beside that it have very good package managing system, instaling ruby + ruby on rails + gems is as easy as typing:

sudo aptitude install ruby1.8 rails rubygems

you an also install ruby 1.9 this way now!

greets

3

I honestly think it doesn't matter one bit - pick a well supported one with a
large community and run with it. You may gain some advantage by running the
distribution you eventually will deploy production code to as it allows for
more holistic testing, but given what you want to do - Ruby and RoR - you're
looking at the same tools on whatever distribution you end up using: a text
editor, a web server, probably a database server, ruby and the rails gem. You
can run that on pretty much anything.

Felix

···

-----Original Message-----
From: Slavo Furman [mailto:slavof@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2007 2:30 PM
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: What Linux distribution to choose for learning Ruby
and Ruby on Rails

Hi!

I apologize forward for somewhat dumb question...

I am just another programmer whose (relatively successful)
ASP.NET career
was somewhat disrupted by encountering Ruby/Ruby on Rails few
months ago. So
far I learned and used Ruby just on Windows, but now I
decided o give it try
also on Linux.

So, what Linux distribution would you recommend for
programmer who have
master degree in CS, 10+ years experience as
achitect/programmer on Windows
(C++, C#, ASP.NET, MS SQL Server), good understanding of
system programming
concepts, but no Linux experience? I look forward to using
Linux mainly for
learning more Ruby and Ruby on Rails programming.

thanks in advance!
slavo.

4

Slavo Furman wrote:

Hi!

I apologize forward for somewhat dumb question...

I am just another programmer whose (relatively successful) ASP.NET career
was somewhat disrupted by encountering Ruby/Ruby on Rails few months ago. So
far I learned and used Ruby just on Windows, but now I decided o give it try
also on Linux.

So, what Linux distribution would you recommend for programmer who have
master degree in CS, 10+ years experience as achitect/programmer on Windows
(C++, C#, ASP.NET, MS SQL Server), good understanding of system programming
concepts, but no Linux experience? I look forward to using Linux mainly for
learning more Ruby and Ruby on Rails programming.

thanks in advance!
slavo.

Lots of questions:

1. Have you considered staying on Windows and installing "Instant Rails"
there?

2. Have you considered installing the jRuby platform on Windows and
using that?

3. What do you want to learn about Linux? Linux is a pretty broad area.
Do you want to learn how to "develop web applications" using the
"native" Linux tools plus Ruby on Rails? Do you want to learn how to
administer a Linux-based web application/Ruby on Rails server?

There are three main branches of Linux, plus a fourth less-well-known
branch that happens to be the one I use. :slight_smile: The main branches are Red
Hat Enterprise, SuSE (Novell) Enterprise, and Debian. Red Hat has an
associated community distro called Fedora and a number of binary
re-builds like CentOS and Scientific Linux. SuSE Enterprise has an
associated community distro called OpenSuSE. And Debian has an
associated sort-of-half commercial distro called Ubuntu.

All of them support the major open-source web servers and relational
databases. The "community" distros tend to have newer, less stable
packages than the "enterprise" distros, so if you want to focus on
learning Ruby and Rails, I'd recommend a community distro at a "testing"
level.

Those would be Fedora, OpenSuSE and Debian "testing", aka "Lenny". I'd
stay away from Ubuntu -- I know people who swear by it and people who
swear *at* it, but it's really a half-breed. It's neither stable nor
testing, neither commercial nor community, and it's not nearly as
"user-friendly" as it looks at first glance.

5

If you are new to Linux, Ubuntu or Kubuntu is very likely the best
place to start these days.

But seeing that distributions are a rather personal matter, I can't
let an oportunity like this go by without plugging my "brand". I used
to be a Debian man, but these days I'm a happy Arch user --she's lean
and fast. I'll also put in a pitch for GoboLinux, which has a much
more elegant design than most distros.

T.

···

On Sep 9, 2:29 pm, "Slavo Furman" <sla...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi!

I apologize forward for somewhat dumb question...

I am just another programmer whose (relatively successful) ASP.NET career
was somewhat disrupted by encountering Ruby/Ruby on Rails few months ago. So
far I learned and used Ruby just on Windows, but now I decided o give it try
also on Linux.

So, what Linux distribution would you recommend for programmer who have
master degree in CS, 10+ years experience as achitect/programmer on Windows
(C++, C#, ASP.NET, MS SQL Server), good understanding of system programming
concepts, but no Linux experience? I look forward to using Linux mainly for
learning more Ruby and Ruby on Rails programming.

6

Hi Slavo,

Slavo Furman wrote:

So, what Linux distribution would you recommend for programmer who have
master degree in CS, 10+ years experience as achitect/programmer on Windows
(C++, C#, ASP.NET, MS SQL Server), good understanding of system programming
concepts, but no Linux experience? I look forward to using Linux mainly for
learning more Ruby and Ruby on Rails programming.

thanks in advance!
slavo.

I used Gentoo at home and work for a few years and loved it. I had tried many others but I really started to appreciate gnu/linux etc when I got into gentoo. Gentoo is good for getting the latest and greatest versions of libraries/applications, and the forum community is (was) really helpful and knowledgeable.

Debian is also really nice and much faster than gentoo to get up and running.

With your background I reckon if you have the will/patience you will be fine with any distribution. Just try to block out what you know about OS's from Windows and embrace the terminal.

Cheers,
Mark

p.s. whichever you choose, make sure you create a separate /home partition so you can easily install a new distribution without losing your settings.

7

Slavo Furman wrote:

Hi!

I apologize forward for somewhat dumb question...

I am just another programmer whose (relatively successful) ASP.NET career
was somewhat disrupted by encountering Ruby/Ruby on Rails few months ago. So
far I learned and used Ruby just on Windows, but now I decided o give it try
also on Linux.

So, what Linux distribution would you recommend for programmer who have
master degree in CS, 10+ years experience as achitect/programmer on Windows
(C++, C#, ASP.NET, MS SQL Server), good understanding of system programming
concepts, but no Linux experience? I look forward to using Linux mainly for
learning more Ruby and Ruby on Rails programming.

thanks in advance!
slavo.

Any Linux Distro will do, if you prefer *not* to actually have to learn much
of any thing about Linux based Operating Systems, I'd suggest Ubuntu or one of
the BSD's hacked up for ease of Joe Desktop User (PC-BSD, DesktopBSD). Ubuntu
GNU/Linux, PC-BSD, and DesktopBSD are the only major systems that try to be
user friendly + worth a dang.

If you have 10 years of experience in Computer Science and Programming,
learning a Linux or Unix system should not be hard... Took me less then 1 year
on a BSD box to learn a large amount of things with a extremely lesser level
of education then you have.

On the Subject of Linux Distros, the only ones I respect are Slackware Linux
and Debian GNU/Linux. Some people also favor Red Hat / Fedora stuff.

TerryP.

···

--
    
Email and shopping with the feelgood factor!
55% of income to good causes. http://www.ippimail.com

8

Ubuntu is more distinctly GUI-oriented in a "Windows-friendly" way.
Debian is . . . well, I like it a lot more than Ubuntu, for reasons of
stability, a more "authentic" Unix-like feel, and so on. Also, if you're
not looking specifically for Linux per se, but just want a free Unix-like
OS, you might look into FreeBSD (or PC-BSD for a GUI-oriented,
"Windows-friendly" introduction to FreeBSD), which I find to be an even
more satisfying Unix experience. FreeBSD is, in fact, what I use for all
my Ruby-related work these days (and basically all the rest of my work,
too, for that matter). Your mileage may vary.

···

On Mon, Sep 10, 2007 at 06:41:12AM +0900, Marcin Raczkowski wrote:

Slavo Furman wrote:
>Hi!
>
>I apologize forward for somewhat dumb question...
>
>I am just another programmer whose (relatively successful) ASP.NET career
>was somewhat disrupted by encountering Ruby/Ruby on Rails few months ago.
>So
>far I learned and used Ruby just on Windows, but now I decided o give it
>try
>also on Linux.
>
>So, what Linux distribution would you recommend for programmer who have
>master degree in CS, 10+ years experience as achitect/programmer on Windows
>(C++, C#, ASP.NET, MS SQL Server), good understanding of system programming
>concepts, but no Linux experience? I look forward to using Linux mainly for
>learning more Ruby and Ruby on Rails programming.
>
>thanks in advance!
>slavo.
>

debian or ubuntu - ubuntu is based on debian and is more widnows like
with graphical installers and stuff, beside that it have very good
package managing system, instaling ruby + ruby on rails + gems is as
easy as typing:

sudo aptitude install ruby1.8 rails rubygems

you an also install ruby 1.9 this way now!

--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Marvin Minsky: "It's just incredible that a trillion-synapse computer could
actually spend Saturday afternoon watching a football game."

9

Simple. Which ever one you like best.

···

On Sep 9, 5:41 pm, Marcin Raczkowski <mailing...@gmail.com> wrote:

Slavo Furman wrote:
> Hi!

> I apologize forward for somewhat dumb question...

> I am just another programmer whose (relatively successful) ASP.NET career
> was somewhat disrupted by encountering Ruby/Ruby on Rails few months ago. So
> far I learned and used Ruby just on Windows, but now I decided o give it try
> also on Linux.

> So, what Linux distribution would you recommend for programmer who have
> master degree in CS, 10+ years experience as achitect/programmer on Windows
> (C++, C#, ASP.NET, MS SQL Server), good understanding of system programming
> concepts, but no Linux experience? I look forward to using Linux mainly for
> learning more Ruby and Ruby on Rails programming.

> thanks in advance!
> slavo.

debian or ubuntu - ubuntu is based on debian and is more widnows like
with graphical installers and stuff, beside that it have very good
package managing system, instaling ruby + ruby on rails + gems is as
easy as typing:

sudo aptitude install ruby1.8 rails rubygems

you an also install ruby 1.9 this way now!

greets

10

Thanks for all answers... :slight_smile:

1. Have you considered staying on Windows and installing "Instant Rails"
there?

Yes. This is where I am now. But majority of new developments and all
hostings I found are on Linux/Unix so ...

2. Have you considered installing the jRuby platform on Windows and

using that?

No. I really do not like to mess with Java stuff again (have a awful
experience with enterprise Java with which I have to interop with in one of
our apps I developed in my work. Never more!). But I really looking forward
to spent some time with IronRuby (http://ironruby.rubyforge.org/\) when it
will be more complete.

3. What do you want to learn about Linux? Linux is a pretty broad area.

Do you want to learn how to "develop web applications" using the
"native" Linux tools plus Ruby on Rails? Do you want to learn how to
administer a Linux-based web application/Ruby on Rails server?

Well, for now I like to learn how to install Linux and apps I needed to be
productive with developing web applications using Ruby on Rails. I do not
looking forward to using Linux as my primary platform for now.

thanks.
-- slavo.

···

On 9/10/07, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote:

11

Trans wrote:

But seeing that distributions are a rather personal matter, I can't
let an oportunity like this go by without plugging my "brand". I used
to be a Debian man, but these days I'm a happy Arch user --she's lean
and fast. I'll also put in a pitch for GoboLinux, which has a much
more elegant design than most distros.

Isn't Arch a Debian derivative? There are lots of Debian derivatives,
but Ubuntu has somewhat eclipsed them by sheer marketing hype. But as
far as I can tell, it's fairly easy to make a "pure Debian" system as
fast and lean as any of the derivatives or any other distro.

The bridge you have to cross (eventually) is whether you ever want to do
kernel builds or recompile packages from source. RHEL and its rebuilds
actively *discourage* rebuilding the kernel. It's too easy to trash your
system that way. But rebuilding packages from source is easy on all the
major distros.

Or you could use Gentoo, where you *have* to recompile everything from
source. :slight_smile:

12

Marcin Raczkowski pisze:

Slavo Furman wrote:

Hi!

I apologize forward for somewhat dumb question...

I am just another programmer whose (relatively successful) ASP.NET career
was somewhat disrupted by encountering Ruby/Ruby on Rails few months ago. So
far I learned and used Ruby just on Windows, but now I decided o give it try
also on Linux.

So, what Linux distribution would you recommend for programmer who have
master degree in CS, 10+ years experience as achitect/programmer on Windows
(C++, C#, ASP.NET, MS SQL Server), good understanding of system programming
concepts, but no Linux experience? I look forward to using Linux mainly for
learning more Ruby and Ruby on Rails programming.

thanks in advance!
slavo.

debian or ubuntu - ubuntu is based on debian and is more widnows like with graphical installers and stuff, beside that it have very good package managing system, instaling ruby + ruby on rails + gems is as easy as typing:

sudo aptitude install ruby1.8 rails rubygems

you an also install ruby 1.9 this way now!

greets

it depends from some reasons. firsly - your experience in linux , secondly personal 'likes' (kde/gnome/...).
i use debian because of a lot packages , easy administrating, flexibility.
if you have some experiences in linux you may choose debian, if not - maybe you should try ubuntu/kubuntu.
ubuntu has a lot of forums/wikis for newbies. gentoo has great wiki, but i'm not sure that is a good distribution for people who dont like
playing around with system :slight_smile: instaling packages in debian-based systems is much easier and faster (!).
choose ubunt - if you would like you will be able to easily switch system to debian.

13

Also, keep backups. I've run into a couple of smaller derivative
distributions that will nuke your home directory on install without
bothering to ask if that's what you want. It's rare, but it does
occasionally happen.

···

On Mon, Sep 10, 2007 at 07:32:50PM +0900, Mark Gallop wrote:

p.s. whichever you choose, make sure you create a separate /home
partition so you can easily install a new distribution without losing
your settings.

--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Baltasar Gracian: "A wise man gets more from his enemies than a fool from
his friends."

14

Slavo Furman wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I apologize forward for somewhat dumb question...
>
> I am just another programmer whose (relatively successful) ASP.NET career
> was somewhat disrupted by encountering Ruby/Ruby on Rails few months ago. So
> far I learned and used Ruby just on Windows, but now I decided o give it try
> also on Linux.
>
> So, what Linux distribution would you recommend for programmer who have
> master degree in CS, 10+ years experience as achitect/programmer on Windows
> (C++, C#, ASP.NET, MS SQL Server), good understanding of system programming
> concepts, but no Linux experience? I look forward to using Linux mainly for
> learning more Ruby and Ruby on Rails programming.
>
> thanks in advance!
> slavo.
>

debian or ubuntu - ubuntu is based on debian and is more widnows like
with graphical installers and stuff, beside that it have very good
package managing system, instaling ruby + ruby on rails + gems is as
easy as typing:

sudo aptitude install ruby1.8 rails rubygems

NOO _never_ install rubygems from apt tree, its broken.

···

On 9/10/07, Marcin Raczkowski <mailing.mr@gmail.com> wrote:

you an also install ruby 1.9 this way now!

greets

--
Let them talk of their oriental summer climes of everlasting
conservatories; give me the privilege of making my own summer with my
own coals.

http://blog.gnufied.org

15

Chad Perrin wrote:

Slavo Furman wrote:

Hi!

I apologize forward for somewhat dumb question...

I am just another programmer whose (relatively successful) ASP.NET career
was somewhat disrupted by encountering Ruby/Ruby on Rails few months ago. So
far I learned and used Ruby just on Windows, but now I decided o give it try
also on Linux.

Ubuntu is more distinctly GUI-oriented in a "Windows-friendly" way.
Debian is . . . well, I like it a lot more than Ubuntu, for reasons of
stability, a more "authentic" Unix-like feel, and so on.

If you are still using a Windows box you can get either VMWare Server or VMWare player (both free) and grab a pre-built virtual machine image with Ubuntu and Rails all ready to go.

The upside is that you avoid the whole installation hassle (good to know at some point, but maybe not the first thing you want to be concerned with).

The down side is that, running inside a virtual machine, things can be noticeably slower than running "live".

···

On Mon, Sep 10, 2007 at 06:41:12AM +0900, Marcin Raczkowski wrote:

--
James Britt

www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
www.risingtidesoftware.com - Wicked Cool Coding

16

Slavo Furman wrote:

Thanks for all answers... :slight_smile:

Yes. This is where I am now. But majority of new developments and all
hostings I found are on Linux/Unix so ...

Yes ... I guess I would pick the distro that "most" of the hostings use.
I haven't done any analysis of that, but my gut feel is that most of the
*enterprise-grade* servers in the USA are using Red Hat Enterprise
Linux, probably RHEL 3 or 4, because upgrading is a pain for a server.

Of the ones that aren't using RHEL, I'd guess that most of them are
using Fedora because of its Red Hat compatibility. Ubuntu and Gentoo
aren't really known as server distros, and the RHEL rebuilds like CentOS
aren't nearly as popular as Fedora.

No. I really do not like to mess with Java stuff again (have a awful
experience with enterprise Java with which I have to interop with in one of
our apps I developed in my work. Never more!). But I really looking forward
to spent some time with IronRuby (http://ironruby.rubyforge.org/\) when it
will be more complete.

Well, both the jRuby and IronRuby developers frequent this list, so I'll
let them answer questions about them.

Well, for now I like to learn how to install Linux and apps I needed to be
productive with developing web applications using Ruby on Rails. I do not
looking forward to using Linux as my primary platform for now.

In that case, I'd recommend either CentOS 5 or Fedora 7. Both are as
"easy to use" as Red Hat. CentOS 5 lags RHEL 5 updates by at most a day
or two, and it is for the most part stable and easy to work with.

What you *don't* want to do with CentOS is try to manage packages that
aren't part of the distro, *including* more recent versions of Ruby and
your database of choice (MySQL and PostgreSQL are the two big ones).
That way lies madness and spending time on stuff you don't want to learn
rather than on Ruby, Rails and web application development. If you want
to stay current with Ruby, Rails and the databases, go with Fedora.

One other note: most Linux distros now include something called "mono".
I don't know the details, since I'm not a .NET person, but it is an open
source ".NET-like" platform of some sort.

···

On 9/10/07, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote:

17

Isn't Arch a Debian derivative? There are lots of Debian derivatives,
but Ubuntu has somewhat eclipsed them by sheer marketing hype. But as
far as I can tell, it's fairly easy to make a "pure Debian" system as
fast and lean as any of the derivatives or any other distro.

All of my systems are CentOS, but if you don't care about long term (5+ years) stability, Ubuntu is probably a better choice. With Ubuntu, I would plan on rebuilding the system to the latest release every 12-18 months, but it is a much more friendly distro for the newcomer.

The bridge you have to cross (eventually) is whether you ever want to do
kernel builds or recompile packages from source. RHEL and its rebuilds
actively *discourage* rebuilding the kernel. It's too easy to trash your
system that way. But rebuilding packages from source is easy on all the
major distros.

I routinely grab updated source RPMs and rebuild packages, but I also do Linux sysadmin full time for a living. I haven't had any reason to do a kernel rebuild in a few years now, so I think that's far less of an issue these days (but monolithic kernel still suck!).

Also, with CentOS, I add the rpmforge package repository to the list of sources. Lots of good stuff there.

-- Matt
It's not what I know that counts.
It's what I can remember in time to use.

···

On Mon, 10 Sep 2007, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

18

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Trans wrote:
> But seeing that distributions are a rather personal matter, I can't
> let an oportunity like this go by without plugging my "brand". I used
> to be a Debian man, but these days I'm a happy Arch user --she's lean
> and fast. I'll also put in a pitch for GoboLinux, which has a much
> more elegant design than most distros.

Isn't Arch a Debian derivative? There are lots of Debian derivatives,
but Ubuntu has somewhat eclipsed them by sheer marketing hype. But as
far as I can tell, it's fairly easy to make a "pure Debian" system as
fast and lean as any of the derivatives or any other distro.

Nope. Arch is not based on Debian. Arch is it's own creation, probably
more similar to Slackware than anything else. It is about as close as
you get to a source based distro without actually becoming one. The
pacman package manager is very straightforward.

The bridge you have to cross (eventually) is whether you ever want to do
kernel builds or recompile packages from source. RHEL and its rebuilds
actively *discourage* rebuilding the kernel. It's too easy to trash your
system that way. But rebuilding packages from source is easy on all the
major distros.

Or you could use Gentoo, where you *have* to recompile everything from
source. :slight_smile:

Ah, come on! SourceMage or Lunar is where the real source code action
is at :wink:

T.

···

On Sep 9, 6:54 pm, "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <zn...@cesmail.net> wrote:

19

Slavo Furman wrote:

Thanks for all answers... :slight_smile:

1. Have you considered staying on Windows and installing "Instant Rails"
there?

Yes. This is where I am now. But majority of new developments and all
hostings I found are on Linux/Unix so ...

2. Have you considered installing the jRuby platform on Windows and

using that?

No. I really do not like to mess with Java stuff again (have a awful
experience with enterprise Java with which I have to interop with in one of
our apps I developed in my work. Never more!). But I really looking forward
to spent some time with IronRuby (http://ironruby.rubyforge.org/\) when it
will be more complete.

There's very little about JRuby that feels like Java. It smells pretty much like Ruby, unless you choose to pull in Java libraries on your own. It's just Ruby with a different VM underneath.

- Charlie

···

On 9/10/07, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote:

20

You are totally right. It's mostly unusable. It was very strange for me for
the first time, because on FreeBSD i am usually using ports to get the
workable ruby and rails environment rather then manually work with
rubygems here on my Ubuntu box...

···

On Wednesday 12 September 2007 11:35:51 hemant wrote:

NOO _never_ install rubygems from apt tree, its broken.

--

- Best regards, Nikolay Pavlov. <<<-----------------------------------