First Time Linux

Programming Linux

This linux system is extremely flexible and extremely powerful. Running it as a user is all very well, but this box can now do sooooo much more! The time may come when you want to start programming the thing, rather than just using other people's programs. This may sound daunting, but perhaps linux users will be more inclined to go in this direction anyway.

This section of the site will cover a few basic languages and try to get just the very simplest programs running. The rest can be covered by the general language help, which will be referenced along the way. Plus of course there's a wealth of forums where there are loads of people only too happy to answer your questions (as long as they're not asked every day and already explained in the FAQs!

There are lots of different languages and techniques, for programming and scripting, and each will have its own advantages, disadvantages and appropriate usages. This section won't concentrate on recommending one solution over another, or in providing in-depth detailed manuals for each language, but rather how to get various languages working with Mandriva.

First of all we look at shell scripting using Bash scripts, and then examine web programming using a local web server, client-side javascript and server-side php. After that we get stuck into some Java, for compiling and running simple cross-platform programs, and then C++ including building GUIs using the Qt window toolkit.

We also look at Perl for powerful scripting techniques, and then we take a look at Python and Ruby which both have similarities and also allow GUI building using Qt (and other libraries). We also briefly check out Groovy, a simple scripting language for the java platform which can be used instead of or in combination with java classes.

For something slightly different, we look at a free alternative to Matlab, called Octave from Gnu. This is a powerful numerical analysis tool with a Matlab-compatible programming language.

And finally we take a peek at Lisp and how to get the basics working with an editor and the command line.

There's also a brief introduction to version control (not restricted to programming, you can use it for any of your files) using subversion.