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I'd answer your question in a language agnostic manner. You're not being stupid, but being cautious. To me, whether you need to be that cautious or not is entirely up to you.
You mention that it's a 'personal' project with no time constraints. In the pure sense of that, you can throw caution to the wind and have fun! But, if the definition of personal means that you might hope that it turns into an MVP down the road, I'd stay with the tried and true.
Aside from being the shiny object, would Zig get you where you want to be that much faster? Along with realizing that it may never get to 1.0. Sometimes the back of your head has the right answer even though your eyes may see it another way 
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MikeCO10 wrote: To me, whether you need to be that cautious or not is entirely up to you.
Good point. Think I'm just in over worry mode, because that's what good times are made of. 
MikeCO10 wrote: But, if the definition of personal means that you might hope that it turns into an MVP down the road, I'd stay with the tried and true.
Good point. This project is personal to me, but it still needs to function as if it were not. I'll never resale it as I do not want to support it, but it needs to be rock solid no different than a commercial app.
MikeCO10 wrote: Aside from being the shiny object, would Zig get you where you want to be that much faster? Along with realizing that it may never get to 1.0. Sometimes the back of your head has the right answer even though your eyes may see it another way
You speak from experience.
I'll admit I did get caught up in the new shiny object thing a bit since AFAIK there hasn't been a viable "C 2.0" as it were until now IMO. I'm pretty sure they're serious enough to take it to 1.0, but yeah you're right... either way it's a gamble.
Jeremy Falcon
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Stick with C or move to C++.
We also now have Rust.
Anything else and you could be risking more than you would want...
Steve Naidamast
Sr. Software Engineer
Black Falcon Software, Inc.
blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
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Wordle 1,162 3/6*
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟨🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Didn't think this was an English word
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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I know what you mean, but it's the US spelling again.
I dithered for a while before tying it because I couldn't think of any other words that I hadn't eliminated. Looks odd without a second word after it, or a double letter! 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Mechanical Engineers often use this word, but with six letters instead of five. I too didn't think it was an English word.
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Wordle 1,162 4/6
⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
🟨🟩⬜🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Within you lies the power for good - Use it!
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What a shocker. What's next, "COLOR", "FAVOR"? 
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Armor is in their list
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Could be anything - after all in Murican English, "Food" is spelled "Kfc" ... 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Wordle 1,162 4/6
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
⬛⬛🟨⬛🟩
🟩🟨🟨⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
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I swear I've asked this before, but I cannot find it. Honey, looking at you because for some reason I think you do development on Linux.
Direct link to past discussions welcome.
I'm in the process of cleaning up some hardware and repurposing it. Looking at C/C++ and heading over to full stack development.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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All of them are good for development, but they are not all the same when it comes to just using the OS. I'll try to keep this short, but I'll probably yap.
In the Linux world, there's distros that follow what's called a rolling release. Which is to say, no real user testing for updates. Dev done. Bam. You get. You don't want that as your first one. They're easier to break and require way more frequent updates. Meant for tinkerers who need the bleeding edge of crap to feel superior while not actually using the OS to do any work.
The second thing to consider for whether or not to use Wayland or X11 for your desktop experience. Here's the short version... use Wayland. If you game, some older games may require X11, but every distro that gives you Wayland support will allow you to fall back to X11. It's akin to Windows vs DOS back in the 90s. But Wayland gonna run smoother.
Given all that, the best starter distros to use are Debian-based that solve some of the hassles of the desktop experience and use Wayland by default. So...
Ubuntu
Ubuntu - By far the most popular distro and for a good reason. You can't go wrong with it. Tons of help online, etc. too. It uses Gnome however, which is more like a cross between iOS and Win 8's start menu than Windows 10. You can change this though via extensions. So, there will be a learning curve. But, you can't go wrong with it and it's what I'm using right now to post this.
Kubuntu
Kubuntu - Same exact thing as Ubuntu but ships with KDE instead of Gnome. Long story short, this version feels a lot more like Windows. If that's your jam it's a good way to go. They do this silly thing where everything starts with K though (Konsole instead of Console), but it's still a very good distro. Can't go wrong with it.
Linux Mint
If you don't care about Wayland (you should unless your computer is 20 years old), there's Linux Mint. It's a very nice and polished distro but it's still on X11 and will be for a while. It's based on Ubuntu and so also based on Debian. IMO it's a last resort though, especially if you have a modern GPU.
All three of these distros are beginner friendly, as much as can be considering. You can't go wrong with them.
Jeremy Falcon
modified 24-Aug-24 7:49am.
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Years ago, I tried both Ubuntu and Kubuntu but didn't like either Gnome or KDE - both seemed too focussed on colours, shading and pretty icons, hence XFCE on Debian - simple, no fuss, hardly anything to tweak except what really needs tweaking...
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I've been using Linux since the 90s, so I know all about Xfce. And I use direct Debian on servers/WSL. But, he's presumably looking for a beginner friendly desktop OS by the nature of the question. And as much as I love direct Debian dealing with drivers for it are not beginner friendly.
Couple things to note, KDE uses less resources than Xfce last I checked. If you like it, cool. But, let's not play the game of "oh mine's better because I use it" please.
Also, if someone is determined to use Xfce, Mint also makes a Xfce edition. Which for a beginner is a better way to go than direct Debian.
I say this as a dude who loves Debian.
Jeremy Falcon
modified 23-Aug-24 20:11pm.
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"But, he's presumably looking for a beginner friendly desktop OS by the nature of the question."
Not so fast there whipper snapper I'm just getting ready to jump back in the pool. The desktop doesn't concern me too much. So, let me supply some context.
Sure, there is the desktop, but I can manage that. I cut my teeth on X11/Xtoolkit and Motif. I've developed on and supported X Windows Servers. I've also supported and developed on Solaris, HPUX, AIX, Ultrix. I don't care about the desktop per se'. But if you do hard core unix development, it really comes down to stability, predictability and toolsets. Considering that linux has a common code base, and ignoring the desktop, I would expect any development tools to run on any distribution.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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Then yeah, it really doesn't matter which distro you choose. Most popular distros will have the tools you want. If it's any Debian based distro (or Debian itself) it's simply a matter of...
sudo apt install build-essential cmake -y
...for most things related to C/C++. Apps like VSCode will work on any distro too.
Jeremy Falcon
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The suggestion to run Linux off a stick is probably the best initial choice. For a few minute's effort, you can test drive live versions of various distros.
There are several 3rd party applications that will burn an OS to a stick -- the last one I used was Balena Etcher: balenaEtcher - Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives[^]
I dabble with Linux (too much stuff tied to Windows to switch), and running various distros from stick works fine for my needs. For long term, you're probably better served with a dual boot, but for now you play in a risk-free environment.
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Jeremy, does Debian support hibernation? And by extension, Ubuntu & Kubuntu?
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Yuppers. Just took this screenshot of my quick launch control panel. I'm on a laptop though, but it should be the same on a desktop. Fortunately, most distros will have this.
If you're on a laptop too, the real issue is that it's a pain with some distros for laptops when dealing with dual GPUs. Especially if one of those GPUs is an nVidia one. Most recent-ish laptops will have two, one for normal use and battery/lower power mode and one when you need the umph. Some distros aren't quite there yet with making it easy to deal with.
But, distros like Ubuntu will just make that crap work out of the box.
Jeremy Falcon
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Thanks. 
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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I'll tell you Jeremy, the main thing that's stopping me right now from installing Linux as a dual boot on one of my machines, is the fact that I don't know how to cleanly remove the GRUB bootloader and restore the Windows one in the event that I want to remove the dual boot.
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Makes total sense man. You got four options at least:
1) You can use a live CD/USB stick. Most distros ship with that. Basically, you can play around with the OS in memory and it installs nothing. Of course, if you mount an NTFS volume and start deleting everything you'll run into trouble. But, the OS will never install anything, so you can just remove the USB stick and reboot and voila it's gone.
2) Install that bad boy and live on the edge like a wild man. You can use Windows Recovery to repair the boot loader. I haven't used it in a while, but if you're not using drive encryption then it should be straightforward.
3) Chunk that thing in a VM. It might run a tad slower, but ya know... can play around until your heart's content and it's just a VM.
4) Use WSL2. WSL is really nice these days. You can run Linux GUI apps and everything. IMO, it's still nice to take the plunge and just install the whole OS but it's an option.
Jeremy Falcon
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Oh, I should say, I'm sorta in the same boat. My desktop is running Win11 and WSL2/Debian. But my laptop is the one I just went all out on and got rid of Windows. IMO giving up Windows completely now isn't practical, so it's a nice balance.
Jeremy Falcon
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