I had to use Ubuntu to program a university project.
It was a terrible experience and i had to spend hours to make it compile what i wanted. Linux is still very very far from being as user-friendly and intuitive as Windows.
@GGG Learning curves is so steep in linux, I agree. But once you got the hang of it, you should be fine. Windows is much user friendly than ubuntu. The only thing good about ubuntu is it's free.
@GGG Windows was hard the first time you used it too. Remenber? I had my fair share of problems with Linux too. I tried several distros until i found the one that suited me the most: Linux Mint. It's Ubuntu based, except better... Now i only run Mint, although i do have a copy of Windows 7. And let me tell you, my Linux runs flawlessly. I don't even remember that Windows exists most of the time...
About your problem... In order for Linux to compile what you need, you must install gcc compiler first. You can install and compile in less than 5 minutes...
My first contact with linux was several years ago in situation like yours, so Linux was no where near the level it is today. Nonetheless i found it quite easy to do that... So... What distro did you use?
yes, i found out about apt-get and i think it's a great idea
but somehow i still don't like the idea of compiling something that i need to compile something else
if it was possible to use linux without shell commands i'd be all over it, but from my experience it's just not possible. i used the latest available version, 9.10, but it still didn't do everything i wanted to do with copy/paste, right clicks and dragging and dropping. i can't remember the exact details, but i know i had to use shell commands for some preety basic stuff.
And no, i don't remember if windows was hard to begin with because that was a very very long time ago, back then i only used windows to draw in MS Paint and still used MS-DOS and Norton Commander to play games. But i guess that if i started using Linux then, i'd have a hard time getting used to Windows now.
@GGG I don't know which university you're in and don't know why you were doing programming, but when you say it takes so long to compile, do you ever wonder maybe you wrote a crap program? Or maybe you're using a crappy compiler. Whichever the reason was, please don't blame your lack of programming skill to an OS.
@GGG I think that all OS's have different things going for them. I have Windows 7 64 bit for my main computer since it can play all of my games and is the most universal, I have Ubuntu on many older computers since it is less demanding and I can use it for almost anything other than games. I don't own a mac but from the times I've used other people's I've found that it has a nice interface. (now, onto my hopes: if someone can tell me that I can flash-boot 10.4 with persistence enabled, my day will be made)
@SigFrancisco Ironically GGG was saying that this wasn't great for his software development. Actually, Ubuntu is great for a lot of users who aren't developers. I happen to be one. Please don't spread these "truisms" about Linux only being for geeks - it's not true anymore.
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I had to use Ubuntu to program a university project.
It was a terrible experience and i had to spend hours to make it compile what i wanted. Linux is still very very far from being as user-friendly and intuitive as Windows.
@GGG Learning curves is so steep in linux, I agree. But once you got the hang of it, you should be fine. Windows is much user friendly than ubuntu. The only thing good about ubuntu is it's free.
@1mc
With new software center you can use Ubuntu without ever opening Terminal.
@GGG
Windows was hard the first time you used it too. Remenber?
I had my fair share of problems with Linux too. I tried several distros until i found the one that suited me the most: Linux Mint. It's Ubuntu based, except better...
Now i only run Mint, although i do have a copy of Windows 7. And let me tell you, my Linux runs flawlessly. I don't even remember that Windows exists most of the time...
About your problem...
In order for Linux to compile what you need, you must install gcc compiler first. You can install and compile in less than 5 minutes...
My first contact with linux was several years ago in situation like yours, so Linux was no where near the level it is today. Nonetheless i found it quite easy to do that... So... What distro did you use?
@maxim yes i know, but somehow i prefer to use apt-get. Don't ask me why? I think it just matter of preference i guess.
@GGG
i do exactly the same. compiling on Linux is a dream because of the dependency handling. I would hate to do my research using only windows.
In Ubuntu there are meta packages for handling, eg just download the wine-dep from synaptics and then you can build wine no problems.
@everybody
yes, i found out about apt-get and i think it's a great idea
but somehow i still don't like the idea of compiling something that i need to compile something else
if it was possible to use linux without shell commands i'd be all over it, but from my experience it's just not possible. i used the latest available version, 9.10, but it still didn't do everything i wanted to do with copy/paste, right clicks and dragging and dropping. i can't remember the exact details, but i know i had to use shell commands for some preety basic stuff.
And no, i don't remember if windows was hard to begin with because that was a very very long time ago, back then i only used windows to draw in MS Paint and still used MS-DOS and Norton Commander to play games. But i guess that if i started using Linux then, i'd have a hard time getting used to Windows now.
@GGG I don't know which university you're in and don't know why you were doing programming, but when you say it takes so long to compile, do you ever wonder maybe you wrote a crap program? Or maybe you're using a crappy compiler. Whichever the reason was, please don't blame your lack of programming skill to an OS.
@GGG I think that all OS's have different things going for them. I have Windows 7 64 bit for my main computer since it can play all of my games and is the most universal, I have Ubuntu on many older computers since it is less demanding and I can use it for almost anything other than games. I don't own a mac but from the times I've used other people's I've found that it has a nice interface. (now, onto my hopes: if someone can tell me that I can flash-boot 10.4 with persistence enabled, my day will be made)
@Yeria
Exactly the reason this OS is not ready for "prime time". Great for developers, not the general public.
@SigFrancisco Ironically GGG was saying that this wasn't great for his software development. Actually, Ubuntu is great for a lot of users who aren't developers. I happen to be one. Please don't spread these "truisms" about Linux only being for geeks - it's not true anymore.