How to start using and developing on Ubuntu Linux? [closed]

Question

Suggestions

Environment Setup

1. I would recommend you install a the JDK if you are doing Java development. Look here for instructions on using apt to install the sun JRE.

2. Then, get yourself a decent IDE setup. Try Netbeans or Eclipse - both can be configured to work with php as well.

3. Also make sure you install php and Apache, here are some instructions.

4. Since it sounds like you are going for the classic LAMP setup, you may as well install PostgreSQL or MySQL.

That should get you running far enough to make videos, etc useful.

Development Resources

IDE Resources

• Guided Video Tour of Netbeans 6.5
• Eclipse and Java Video Tutorials

Java

• Java Antipatterns - Learn what not to do in Java.
• Apache Commons - Get libraries for common tasks in Java.

PHP

• PEAR - Get libraries for common tasks in PHP.
• ADODB - Get a decent db backend for PHP and learn how to prevent SQL injection attacks from the start.
• Start to play around with a web dev framework.

Ubuntu Pocket Guide

If you're new to Linux, I'd suggest you look at the Ubuntu Pocket Guide. It goes through basic stuff that any user would want to know - window management, system configuration, etc, as well as some historical background on Linux and Ubuntu. You can skim through that and learn a bit.

Bash Basics

Towards the end, it also explains the basics of bash, which is the Linux command line. That part is interesting - you can do a lot more in bash than you can do in the Windows command line. For example, you may be familiar with this Windows idiom:

dir > directorylist.txt

...which means, "list the contents of this folder, and instead of showing the output, put it in this file."

In Linux, you can do that, and you can also do piping, where you direct the output of one command into another. For example:

ls | grep foo

means "list the contents of this folder, and search through the output for the regular expression foo." You can add as many pipes as you want and use a variety of commands.

You can also use brace expansion to run multiple commands in sequence. For example,

mkdir photos_{france,spain,italy}

will create directories called photos_france, photos_spain, and photos_italy.

If you're going to be developing in Linux, you should invest the time to read some tutorials on bash to take full advantage of it.

Since both Java and PHP are cross platform, it seems your biggest task would be to familiarize yourself with GNU/Linux and tools related to web development, apache web server in particular. Here are a few things google gave me:

http://www.micahcarrick.com/09-28-2007/web-development-linux.html

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/

Have fun.

Another option is Lazarus, which is based on Free Pascal, which itself is based on Delphi.

Lazarus allows you to develop using Object Oriented Pascal, across Linux, Windows and MacOSX and produces natively compiled executables on each target platform.

Natively compiled executables are generally much faster than interpreter based apps (i.e. Java, C#, PHP).

Lazarus use a component and event based approach to development which allows you to design GUI by dragging and dropping components on a Form Designer, which then are hooked through events.

Good luck with your programming adventures!

Ubuntu Kung Fu might be a good start.