Windows or Linux

[SMcNeill]

I'm afraid I'll never swap over to Linux.  The biggest bonus I see for Windows is stability, documentation, and access to tons of APIs and existing code sources and examples.  The *stuff* you can do with it is simply easier to do, and easier to code into your works.  Take a look at QB64 itself, as an example.  How many of our commands are Windows-only?  What can you do in Windows that you can't do in Linux/Mac?

Why was it so much easier to add that functionality into the Windows version of QB64, than it is for someone to add into the Linux/Mac version?

Why do we find multiple examples of DECLARE LIBRARY "user32" stuff for Windows, and yet *NEVER* see something equivalent for Linux/Mac?  The wiki has a whole page dedicated to Windows Library Code, but not a single entry for a Linux Library usage.

Say what you like about Linux vs Windows, until the above situation changes considerably, I honestly don't think there's any chance I'd ever migrate over to Linux.

[Kernelpanic]

I'm hearing about this for the first time. The GCC is standard in every Linux distro, if it's not part of the Puppy distro then forget Puppy. 
In earnest, is there no guide on how one to correctly install the latest stable GCC 11.3; I think?
:

Theoretically this is true, but only the C compiler is "required". Many distros don't carry the C++ compiler, will need that to create programs with QB64. Other programming systems want the "fortran" library for maths so that's usually pulled in as dependency of "gcc".

Even worse, a few distros could have the C and C++ compilers but a mind-boggling naming system which makes it difficult to locate the headers and libraries. This happened to me on Solus which forced me to investigate. It's one of the distros which specifically requires installing a "developer's package" on top of whatever exists considered to be "gcc".

I had SuSE on my computer alongside Windows for over 14 years, from version 4.3 to 11.2. After that only in the VBox, and now under WSL2 (command line only).

Since there was always enough space on the 2nd hard drive, I also tried a few others: Debian, Mandrake, Kanotix. . . SuSE has always been the best distro for me, and it still is today.

Since the sale to(?), the distro has gotten a bit skewed, in my opinion, but when I read about the problems others have with their distros, then SuSE is still the best choice for me.

The beginning:

[mnrvovrfc]

:
Take a look at QB64 itself, as an example.  How many of our commands are Windows-only?  What can you do in Windows that you can't do in Linux/Mac?

Why was it so much easier to add that functionality into the Windows version of QB64, than it is for someone to add into the Linux/Mac version?

Why do we find multiple examples of DECLARE LIBRARY "user32" stuff for Windows, and yet *NEVER* see something equivalent for Linux/Mac?  The wiki has a whole page dedicated to Windows Library Code, but not a single entry for a Linux Library usage.
:

It's because Linux was unfortunate enough to be a "later" player than Windows, and QB64 recalls a somewhat successful product from the same company that created Windows and while Windows was developing into what it is today. The decade-2000 was a lot of settling for the Linux people to try to take users away from Windows and MacOS. Before that, they were trying to make it work so at least 75% emulated Unix as closely as possible.

My very first experience with Linux was plain Ubuntu, about two years after its first release. It came with Computer Music Magazine, a music technology magazine published in the U.K. It was expected they present Ubuntu Studio but I'm not sure if that flavor was available at the time. If not, then it's easy to tell the Linux world were just trying to settle to get it right, into a difficult road ahead to persuade people to try it at least, if those users were still going to prefer Windows or MacOS.

The distro came in an ISO which I had to burn into a DVD. I had to run it in live mode out of the very slow, sometimes erratic laptop DVD drive. It surprised me that it worked well enough, at least to do a little word processing. It looked good but different. At the time I only cared about it being able to save and load files into the same partitions that Windows did so.

A few years later, in 2009 I believe, I discovered QB64 which was at v0.84 at the time. It was very buggy, often failed with "C++ compilation failed" which turned me off and it caused me to still use M$QB v4.5 on a Windows7 laptop. I wouldn't have had such a luxury with Linux. Wine was at v1 for an unusually long time, a lot of things to get right only so people could play games.

It should have worked both ways, though: the GNU C compiler should have been even more important than actually, leaving M$ and ApCo to create subordinate products.

[mnrvovrfc]

BTW I'm not trying to persuade anybody to abandon Windows or MacOS for Linux. I had been describing my experiences with a few different Linux distros. I had been distro-hopping a bit. I was unable to pick up Gentoo or anything based on it, it looks really complicated. Also I'm kind of afraid of Arch, and I was unable to get Slackware going the way I wanted. Those were other two which put off a lot of people too used to Windows. I like Ubuntu but it has sort of become bloatware. I couldn't run Ubuntu Studio efficiently on a 10-year-old laptop on a slow (not SSD) hard disk.

The missing information about Linux usage in the wiki is caused by the need for somebody to allocate some time for it. After eight years of being away from Internet, I became surprised there still isn't any information for alternative for outdated "FILES" command in particular. I think the existing example for that command should be replaced, for example, by Steve's contribution which appears in B+'s "oh" interpreter. Although it's a bit long.

One more thing. I never experienced Wine until I returned to Internet four months ago. :tu:

[madscijr]

BTW I'm not trying to persuade anybody to abandon Windows or MacOS for Linux. I had been describing my experiences with a few different Linux distros. I had been distro-hopping a bit. I was unable to pick up Gentoo or anything based on it, it looks really complicated. Also I'm kind of afraid of Arch, and I was unable to get Slackware going the way I wanted. Those were other two which put off a lot of people too used to Windows. I like Ubuntu but it has sort of become bloatware. I couldn't run Ubuntu Studio efficiently on a 10-year-old laptop on a slow (not SSD) hard disk.

The missing information about Linux usage in the wiki is caused by the need for somebody to allocate some time for it. After eight years of being away from Internet, I became surprised there still isn't any information for alternative for outdated "FILES" command in particular. I think the existing example for that command should be replaced, for example, by Steve's contribution which appears in B+'s "oh" interpreter. Although it's a bit long.

One more thing. I never experienced Wine until I returned to Internet four months ago. :tu:

Away from the Internet for 8 years! 
This is a story I have to hear...

[aurel]

Why do we find multiple examples of DECLARE LIBRARY "user32" stuff for Windows, and yet *NEVER* see something equivalent for Linux/Mac?  The wiki has a whole page dedicated to Windows Library Code, but not a single entry for a Linux Library usage.

Say what you like about Linux vs Windows, until the above situation changes considerably, I honestly don't think there's any chance I'd ever migrate over to Linux.

Yes Steve i thinking the same as you !

I was unable to pick up Gentoo or anything based on it, it looks really complicated. Also I'm kind of afraid of Arch, and I was unable to get Slackware

I agree about Gentoo and freakin Arch... both are to much  resource hungry...
Slack is the oldest distro created at that time and have modules..which is not bad at all
Volvix is great old distro which is super fast

[bplus]

Linux is not just another OS it is several and who wants to try to code so all of them will work?

QB64 is also biased for Windows because it started out under MS DOS and Windows.

[SMcNeill]

Linux is not just another OS it is several and who wants to try to code so all of them will work?

Aye, and this is something which I've found makes it almost impossible for me to write code for Linux.  Just the other day, I wrote a little program that compiled a file on disk, ran it, and then deleted it when it was finished.  My simple, go-to solution, was to use a common SHELL "del tempfile.exe" once the program was finished -- which works fine on Windows, Mac, Ubuntu, Mint, and on and on... but doesn't work on Arch as "del" isn't a part of their distro.  Instead, you have to use SHELL "rm tempfile.exe".  

Linux is a bazillion different OSes and each one has its own quirks, making it almost impossible to "code for Linux".  Instead, you code for certain distros of Linux, and tell the other guys, "..works everywhere else.  Good luck sorting the issue out of whatever you're using where it doesn't!"

[madscijr]

Linux is not just another OS it is several and who wants to try to code so all of them will work?

Linux is a bazillion different OSes and each one has its own quirks, making it almost impossible to "code for Linux".  Instead, you code for certain distros of Linux, and tell the other guys, "..works everywhere else.  Good luck sorting the issue out of whatever you're using where it doesn't!"

As long as it supports the major distros, that should be fine. 

I suppose someone could always try forking QB64 if they really want it to work for their weird OS? 

Maybe another workaround would be to have the "QB64 to C" command mapping or whatever it is that controls translation into C, in an editable template? Then if someone wants to mess with that, caveat emptor!

[mnrvovrfc]

... but doesn't work on Arch as "del" isn't a part of their distro.  Instead, you have to use SHELL "rm tempfile.exe".  
:

"rm" was always the terminal command to delete a file on Linux. I don't know where "del" comes from away from MS-DOS, and from Windows "cmd.exe". But it's completely understandable why there would never be a MacOS edition of this project. Even M$QB for Mac was a bust.