Linux Mint or Linux Ubuntu for Livecode

[lemodizon]

Hello Everyone,

I'm planning to change my current O.S (win10) for good and i want to try Linux any suggestions which distro is working well for livecode. Thanks in advance

[richmond62]

I have used Xubuntu successfully with LiveCode for 15 years.

[bogs]

Hiya Lemodizon,

The short answer is 'you *should* be able to use any combination of the linux kernel / desktop packaging system and get Lc to run on it. I have tested it on at least 30 different distros, however, I would be less than candid if I did not point out that :

• some desktop's present stranger things to work around than others (XFCE and MATE for instance, others to greater or lesser degrees)
• *if* you are the type that needs support or you like finding and or reporting bugs and get discouraged if the reports aren't acted upon, then stick to the "Officially supported" configurations in the readme.

Your two stated options (in the title of this thread) were between Linux Mint and Ubuntu, which are effectively the same as far as the linux part goes with different default desktops.

Mint defaults to a desktop (Cinnamon) that they more or less created in house, Ubuntu uses the Gnome desktop by default. Referring to point (2) in the list above, you might think you can just download the current Ubuntu version and your using an officially supported version, however, that is not the case.

From the release notes:

Linux-
LiveCode supports the following Linux distributions, on 32-bit or 64-bit Intel/AMD or compatible processors:
Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04
Fedora 23 & 24
Debian 7 (Wheezy) and 8 (Jessie) [server]
CentOS 7 [server]

So, really the answer to your question kinda depends on your nature, but as far as Lc goes, it runs happiest (where 'nix is concerned) on a distro using the Gnome3 desktop. Of the distros that run Gnome by default, Ubuntu would certainly give you the broadest amount of information if you run into a Linux problem / question, with Mint being a close second.

*Edit - I felt I should point out that Mint / Cinnamon is closer to Windows in arrangement (i.e. menu placement and where you might expect to find things). If that matters to you, it would certainly be a point for choosing Mint.

If you don't mind occasional weirdness in the IDE that you can't get support for, Mint is a good solid 2nd choice. If you really want a walk on the wild side, and see (what I consider) bizarre IDE behavior, test out other desktops offered by the distro you finally settle on.

*Edit 2 - keep in mind that all of the discussed distro's allow you to test out the distro in "Live CD" mode, without having to install it first. This is similar to having a computer that is "fresh" each time you boot up, in other words, if you screw something up it isn't permanent, but nothing else you do is permanent either, so if you download Lc to see how it works on that distro, it will not be installed the next time you boot up.

Good for testing though, and I certainly recommend that route if you want to get used to something gradually (and you *can* save work off to drive, so it is something to think about).

[dunbarx]

I have a much better idea.

Get a Mac.

Craig

[richmond62]

Get a Mac.

I don't know why that is a better idea.

It certainly is a far more expensive idea.

Hereabouts (Bulgaria) one can get a 2 year old PC and a decent-sized monitor for less than 100 Euros
and run Xubuntu on it.

I would suppose that the situation in the Philippines is much the same.

The price of a Mac Mini (₱37,990 = 660 Euros) (and that's without a monitor) does not seem justified.

https://www.apple.com/ph/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini

[FourthWorld]

Good to see you here, lemodizon.

Ubuntu is a very good option for getting started with Linux because it's the most popular, which means more packages, tutorials, and community support.

I use Ubuntu daily on my main workstation, laptop, and all my servers.

[bogs]

I have a much better idea.

Get away from a Mac.

Craig

there, fixed that for you

[wsamples]

Hi, lemondizon, there are many reasons why you might choose one disro over another and why you might select a particular desktop environment. There is certainly no shortage of advice on the internet, but it's not always easy to know if what you're reading is honest advice or distro evangelism and distro reviews are often written by people who are accustomed to another distro and just not happy with the differences. It can be daunting to make a choice, but unlike Windows and Mac, you can always try a different one.

MX Linux, Mint and Ubuntu seem to the default recommendations for beginners, mostly based on false notions that they are somehow sooooooo much simpler to use. They're not "bad" choices but neither would be most any other option. My advice is to accept that you're going to have a learning curve no matter which distro you pick and there might be some consideratioins that are too frequently overlooked by beginners. How Livecode works in a particular distro is an added factor that makes things a little more slippery.

I'm a big advocate of rolling releases. I've used openSUSE Tumbleweed in the past and have for a few years been using Arch based distros. I also am a big fan of haviing a centralized repo. Chasing down and adding PPAs when I used Mint as a Linux beginner drove me nuts. I understand that Canonical has made some strides in improving the situation lately and maybe Richard and Richmond can offer an opinion on how that affects their experience. To be sure, once you've got something installed it becomes a moot point, but I never had the patience for that Once you enable the Arch User Repository (AUR) almost anything available for Linux that isnt in the "official" repos can be added from there. Beginners are commonly discouraged from trying Arch and I think that's unfortunate. It's often due to really poor reasoning and incorrect assumptions about installing and using Arch and underestimating possibilities it offers. There are several Arch based distros which offer a very user friendly installer (no more difficult than Ubuntu or Mint). And gui software can be found to allow you to administer your machine just as comfortably as any other distro. I'm not big on distro evangelizing and I'm not "pushing" Arch, but as an option I think it suffers from an undeserved reputation and a lot of potential users fail to consider it. That said, I would recommend staying away from Manjaro. Of course Manjaro has loyal advocates who are happy with it, but I do have reasons for this opinion.

Livecode is sensitive to the desktop environment (DE) and some of this is a little mysterious. And behavior on particular DEs varies between distros. I used KDE Plasma until very recently and Livecode exhibits a peculiar and erratic behavior that's consisent between distros, is a little annoying, but isn't the kind of showstopping impediment that you'll find with some other DEs. I've switched to Openbox on Arch, which I installed using Archcraft which is a "boutique spin" of Arch and Livecode works absloutely solidly except for the browser widget which doesn't seem to work for most people on most distros but did work for me in Arch with Plasma - go figure. As happy as Richmond is with Xubuntu, Xfce seems to cause everyone else nothing but grief on any distro. Cinnamon and Mate are likewise variable. Typically if there's a problem it involves the Tools Palette and the Message Box and Livecode can be totally unusable. Choice of DE is very subjective and Livecode's inconsistent behavior can make it more complicated than normal, sadly.

My rambling has probably been of no real help, but it does suggest a strategy. Install VirtualBox or some similar software on your Windows machine and install a few candidate distros and try them out before switching. You may find some of them are better than others about setting screen resolution within the virtual machine, but once you've got that straightened out you can get a feel for how they'll work for you and also try different DEs.

One other bit of advice is that when you finally choose a distro and set out to install, put your /home directory on its own partition. There will come a time you'll be glad you did.

[ClipArtGuy]

I highly recommend making a few live USB drives with various distros to test before you commit, but my personal recommendation would be kubuntu. It's a fairly easy transition from Windows and LiveCode works great.

[bogs]

I highly recommend making a few live USB drives with various distros to test before you commit

As cheap as USB drives are, I'd second that motion. I actually installed several distros onto some (larger) USB sticks, and while they aren't as fast as an actual hard drive install, they were quite usable.

[richmond62]

My advice is to accept that you're going to have a learning curve no matter which distro you pick

Well, my experience is that about 24 9-12 year old children who
have had Xubuntu installed on "bits of old crap" by me over the last 10 years
have been up and running (installing .deb packages, WINE, and so on)
within a day.

As Xubuntu looks a bit like the Windows XP WIMP interface (unlike Ubuntu's unfamiliar 'front') that speeds things up a bit.

LiveCode works straight out of the box if you choose a "Me Only" install: no stuff about
missing libraries to throw the new user off into the left field.

[lemodizon]

Hi Everyone,

Thank you very much for sharing your experiences in Linux. I will try all your suggestion regarding in linux hope i can find one. Thanks again and Happy Father's day to all livecode developers. Stay safe.

[PaulDaMacMan]

I was recently using LC IDE (6.5.x & 7.0.1) on Pi 3B+ with default install of latest Raspbian (built on Debian for ARM). Needed to install for "me only" as Richmond said. Used theme / tweeks to make it look and behave (somewhat) like macOS (because it's still my preferred OS after 35 years or so, just not a fan of Apple Inc.), which is what's really great about Linux IMO, personalization / customization. You can even set up Linux with no Desktop Environment, Headless, or in a Just Enough OS appliance type build where it boots directly into some app (like various Libre/OpenELEC, RetroPi, Lakka, etc.) which would be interesting if someone could build a Distro like that that boots directly into LiveCode (my guess is that LC objects would just look like basic "Motif" X-Windows or OpenBox WindowManager look by default in this situation).

[bogs]

I was recently using LC IDE (6.5.x & 7.0.1) on Pi 3B+ with default install of latest Raspbian (built on Debian for ARM). Needed to install for "me only" as Richmond said.

Erm, you mean chose to install for you only as an easy alternative to elevating your permissions, right? There is nothing inherently wrong with escalating to admin privileges to install for anyone that runs the machine, if that is your goal, installing for you only is just easier to do for most people.

[PaulDaMacMan]

I was recently using LC IDE (6.5.x & 7.0.1) on Pi 3B+ with default install of latest Raspbian (built on Debian for ARM). Needed to install for "me only" as Richmond said.

Erm, you mean chose to install for you only as an easy alternative to elevating your permissions, right? There is nothing inherently wrong with escalating to admin privileges to install for anyone that runs the machine, if that is your goal, installing for you only is just easier to do for most people.

The Pi is a single user (me) and I'm constantly changing OSes right now while testing it anyway, I don't need multi-user...
But that's besides the point, I'm saying that this easy way to make the Linux installer install, using the installer, and have it add shortcuts etc. in the process. I suppose running the installer with su / sudo would work too.

Know anything about making a stripped-down-to-LC-requirements (with a package manager of course) Linux build? I think an LC-appliance style LCLinuxOS would be very cool... LC & your stacks could sort-of be your GUI (desktop envirnoment if you like)... Probably best to use a Debian base with Ubuntu Repos? What are LC's Linux requirements again? GTK libs and...?