Jump to content

Help getting started with Mandriva & Programming


Guest Alek
 Share

Recommended Posts

Hey guys,

 

My name is Alek and I am just getting started with Mandrake. I literally installed it two hours ago. I'm still in high school and looking over some of the things I'm going to be doing in college(I plan on graduating with a bachelor or master's in CS), I decided to take on a new challenge and learn to program like a pro. I've always though that the whole idea of open source has been great. I've been using linux for the past two years, however because of the fact that I design websites, I cannot stay away for too long from my photoshop. So I've played around with openSUSE and Ubuntu, however I've never experienced Mandrake and let me tell you - it's friggin awesome! I really like it, I enjoy playing around with it. Other than that, I read in a blog post that this is probably the best linux distro out there for programmers and coders. I have never done any python whatsoever, but I have done Java since I took a college course over the summer. Any other experience that I've had is predominately PHP and Javascript(I'm a Wordpress designer).

 

Enough history, let's get to the point. I would like somebody, doesn't necessarily mean that only one of you have to give me all the answers - you can all contribute with a piece, to walk me through installing Python on Mandrake. This request might seem pretty weird, but I was simply incapable of doing it myself. I looked at the software from the provided repos and ... I think I installed it, but I guess not. Then I actually got on python.org and downloaded it. "Made" the install from the source found in the .tgz archive. But then again, I don't even know how to run it. So I'm pretty sure I got it installed but I can't run it. So a bit of help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Something that really interested me was the capability of Konsole, or the terminal, to turn into a Python runtime. I guess it's concatenated to the linux kernel. All you have to do is type

python

it automatically does it. Pretty crazy! So I played around with that, but I really want to get my actual program up, if there is even such thing - once again, never used python before. I just purchased a book from amazon, and it's on its way. It's 600 pages and it promises to turn a newbie into a Python Pro in just 31 days. I have a 2 months span in which I will have quite some free time so I decided to dedicate myself to this.

 

Thank you all. I apologize for being such a newb.

 

Alek

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello Alek.

Welcome to MUB and be assured all Mandriva users, newb or otherwise, :D are welcome here.

 

I am glad you have discovered Mandriva since it unfortunately seems to have been a hidden secret for a while. :)

 

I cannot help you regarding programming but you will find members here who can help you.

 

A lot of members are naturally tied up with family activitys taking precedence over this Christmas and New Years time so don't be put off by some delay in getting responses.

 

Happy New Year to you and every success in your studies.

 

Cheers. John.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any linux terminal (not just konsole, which is probably the most powerful linux terminal, along with yakuake, which is just another interface for konsole) can run python interactively.

And- surely enough, python is a bog standard in ANY Linux distro, not just Mandriva.

Open a root console, and give

# urpmi python

This is just the core of the python language. Python is splitted in many packages in Mandriva- to add things just use Mandriva Control Center (MCC) / Software installer. Do there a query for "python".

Edited by scarecrow
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you both for the quick replies. Seems like this forum is working pretty well. Happy New Year to all. Yes I installed Python and I believe it's working fine. Other than that, I'm gonna start simple exercises as soon as the holiday joy and fun start fading away.

 

Once again, thank you both for all the help.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's Mandriva, not Mandrake.

The python runtime isn't "concatenated to the kernel", it's just an interactive command line application. It's great for trying things out, especially simple exercises and tests, because you can see what happens right away.

For editing a real program, you can use any editor, but preferably one that you're already familiar with. And preferably one which can colour the texts according to python syntax. You could try bluefish or scite; if you're using KDE then try Kate, if you're using Gnome then try gedit. If you want to get more sophisticated you could try eclipse or IDLE.

 

One other tip - check which version of python you're using. Type the following in your console:

python --version

There are some differences between python 2.x and 3.x, so it's a good idea to know what you've got. Especially if (as you say) you've installed more than one version of python already.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...