Thread: Which linux is best for programming?

I may have been misinformed, but as i understand it when programming for linux you can poke and prod and change the OS in certain ways, ways far beyond what can be done in windows. So, I realize that perhaps some flavors of linux may have had this changed or something (ie redhat) so that the os keeps it's feel which is unique to sed company. So which version of linux (major of obscure) do you think is best to program for...If it's an obscure version I would like it to be fairly simple to use (has a gui) and it functions with newer hardware etc.

Explain "program for"?

Do you mean which distro should your Linux apps target:? In this case yuou are not thinking the right way. Linux apps are Linux apps, and work on any distro. GUI apps can be programmed using any of several toolsets/widget sets, if this is what you are asking I would recommend focusing first on the GTK+ set.

Or do you mean which distro is best to program WITH? In which case, the programming tools are provided by each distro, and in basically the same form, so it doesn't really matter.

Please clarify your question a tad and I might be able to help you more.

I think its just a matter of your opinion per distro. I perfer Mandrake to redhat, and it seems, from the vibe i seem to get from alot of ppl, that anyone who is hard-core linux hates redhat.

Jus my two cents.

And of course if you are a purist you don't really need a distro. It is entirely possible to download, compile, and install every program, and write every configuration file yourself. A distro just automates this.

Of the major distros, they are geared for slightly different applications, but all do basically the same thing. Mandrake is more a desktop, where as Red Hat and SuSE are more servers. What you use is up to you, and Linux "Distro wars" are known in more Linux-oriented discussion groups as the greatest flame-war threads you can get.