Developergo linux Livecd review
The thing I love about linux livecd’s is the ability to try before you make much of a commitment. You can boot, test, evaluate, and then reboot and be back at your usual desktop as if nothing has happened. (With emulators like QEMU and VMWare you don’t even have to reboot the PC.) There are a lot of Developer tools under linux, but until now I haven’t been aware of a distribution (livecd or otherwise) that is emphasizing those.
Distroreviews has a review of a livecd release by the Onebase linux project called Developergo. It’s designed to highlight what developer tools are available under linux. The review is done by a Windows programmer that was looking for a good way to see what options there were under linux.
From the review…
The following programming languages are supported in DevelopGo 1.0
High-level Languages: Java, C, C++, Obj C, Mono C#, Boo, COBOL
Scripting Languages: Perl, Python, BASH, TCL, Ruby, LUA
Toolkits and Bindings available in this Live CD
Toolkits: QT, GTK+, TK, Lesstif, FLTK
Bindings: Ruby-Gnome2, KDEBindings, PyKDE, PyQT, PyGTK, Gnome-Python
IDE and Editors
DevelopGo comes with a number of Editors and Integrated Development Environments to choose from.
Java Programming – The Popular Eclipse IDE version 3.1
Mono C# Programming – MonoDevelop .NET development environment with API documentation
C, C++, Obj, QT, TK, Perl, Python, Ruby – KDevelop 3.1.2 IDE
GTK and GNOME programming – Anjuta 1.2.2 Development studio
Web Programming – BlueFish Editor
Python and Ruby Programming – Eric IDE
GUI Designers – QTDesigner, Glade and Kommander
There are other utilities detailed and the reviewer comments that they like the theme which really gives a “programmers feel”.
It makes me wonder if this isn’t a concept that livecd designers might not think about more. Niche application cds targetted towards a VERY specific user set instead of the huge assembly of “look at all the neat software there is under linux.” There are some already doing this (freeduc?) I know there are myth cds and a few others that target a specific application (wasn’t there an Enemy Territory livecd cd?) , but what other niches could be filled? “Linux Livecd Web and email edition” or “Web designers edition”, graphic artists edition? Linux livecd kitchen edition (with appropriate recipe software/weblinks and nice BIG font settings?)…
I guess what I’m thinking is that I know if I were to build a linux system suited for each of the above there would be a list of specific software that probably wouldn’t be necessary otherwise (although there is a certain amount of software that’s essential no matter what.) The idea of the livecd means that you can build it specific to the purpose for a GROUP of users and make it easier for them.
It’s this kind of article that has me wanting to get back into the livecd project again…. at one point I had made several different livecds for my own use. One was a virus scanning cd, another was a photoalbum. In both cases they were designed to just boot and do their job. One cd I did was specifically designed as a lean network server to allow pulling data off the machine booted. (Windows networking was screwy on this one, so I built it with tools to help get everything off over the network.) Of course I did several cookerbased cds to have a full desktop, but the real power of the livecd is to customize it to a specific use. (In some cases even to a specific user?)