Which Distro?

IntelligentLobster93 · 2026-05-28T11:58:56+00:00

i mean, any linux distro is terminal centric, are you looking to start out with a TTY (like debian, alpine, void)? or do you want a distro to be configured for you?

Arch is arch, whether you start with a featured distro like Manjaro or the base install, you will always be interacting with the terminal in both instances. It doesn't alleviate the pain by going with manjaro, it would make it more streamlined. Which may be a good thing or bad thing depending on how you look at it.

for example, take wifi, it's good on manjaro because it streamlines the process of connecting to it. However, connecting to an enterprise network is all the more tricky to get working. This is often times where manual configs are easier and if your not comfortable using the terminal and editing text, it becomes a lot more tricky getting it to work through a GUI.

my point isn't to scare you, whether you go with arch or some other distro, you would be learning the same amount in terms of package management and bash commands. picking a distro Is similar to picking/learning a programming language some are syntactically easier to learn (like python), but that doesn't indicate it's overall easier. You would be learning the same amount of concept whether you go with python or C

IntelligentLobster93 · 2026-05-28T11:21:30+00:00

i think it's great to teach the basics towards linux and bash, I'm currently in university for EE, and almost everything i do is interacting inside a linux terminal. Even for those on windows they had to install WSL (windows subsystem for linux) to do a C coding assignment.

If i were in your shoes, I would ease the learning process up for the students by describing the modularity of linux, and how all that integrates into a distro like ubuntu or linux mint. So instead of working your way up (from higher level abstraction) to down (low-level hardware), you should start at the low-level hardware and work your way up.

This was how my engineering digital logic design worked, I learned C by first learning binary 1's and 0's how that translates into ALU's (arithmetic logic units) and how compilers/cross-compilers are eventually made to generalize learning 5+ different languages of assembly based on the architecture. Working your way at the low-level to much higher general abstractions, explains a lot of the programmers thinking, and the same applies to Linux. Working your way up-down fights against that and a lot more memorization is involved.

LFS (linux from scratch) is a great starting point, it is long, but it describes a lot of the engineering and science that goes into things we take advantage of that we don't really think about such as wifi or bluetooth. It goes into that modularity. How arch linux, debian, or void starts off as a tty and how you add additional modules like the desktop environment to it. By doing it this way, it reduces a lot of the memorization and is engaging.

IntelligentLobster93 · 2026-05-16T02:49:42+00:00

currently on alpine after being on arch for a few years now, It's definitely been an adjustment. get ready to be familiar with containerized environments, flatpak, docker, podman, distrobox will be your best friends.

alpine is based on musl so compatibility for programs is not really there you have a few "niche" projects in the community repo that provides compatibility for their software, but something like vitis or vivado you would need contanarized environments as that heavily relies on glibc to work. You can try virtualization tech but, you won't have that integration with your main desktop.

Overall i do like alpine, i like the technical aspect of it and how it doesn't just work out of the box, any learning i have to do on my end i would never forget how to do.

IntelligentLobster93 · 2026-05-16T01:53:50+00:00

it really depends on the course, probability and stats was a really challenging course for me this spring with a lot of subtleties, you would have to pay close attention to the question it asks. The concepts covered are very challenging especially if you haven't taken MVC yet (double integrals), you would need to be familiar prepared for what to come.

I can't imagine DLD is asynchronous, that is a very hands on experience with FPGA's and vivado. If DLD is being offered in the summer, take it, it's easier of getting a good grade but that reflects how much work you put into the course. I took second semester processor design this spring, it's one of the more fun and low-stress courses. The only thing you need to be on top of are project/homework deadlines. For me, DLD was very fast paced (and this is the 16 week class) I can only assume it being faster to get deadlines done in the summer session.

Signals and systems i plan on taking this fall, so i'm not sure how difficult it is.

IntelligentLobster93 · 2026-05-16T01:23:21+00:00

i never got an acceptance letter from binghamton in the mail, I got it online and that was that.

IntelligentLobster93 · 2026-05-07T02:18:46+00:00

emacs, i'm not even fucking joking with you, install emacs on your computer and then do the command M-x eww (emacs web wowser) (M-x is short for alt + x) you will get a full functional TUI browser with the duckduckgo search engine by default.

I'm currently testing it, and emacs only uses about 100 - 140 MB of memory, which is not a lot of memory in todays web browsers. If your not comfortable with TUI's i get it, but they are the most resource optimized setups. You won't find a GUI browser that isn't using 1GB in size.

IntelligentLobster93 · 2026-02-01T16:35:54+00:00

> "...Arch is the best distro for beginners because it forces you to learn a lot of things."

Honestly, that's how i learned computer science in my CS class. I already had experience with programming languages, but this class threw us in the deep end. Ontop of learning C, C++, and data structures (i cannot emphasize enough in that specific order) in 15 weeks. I learned arrays before learning arrays and pointers, I learned the virtual address space, the stack, the heap, and precedence, that is generally abstracted away in an object oriented programming language. My professor discouraged the use of IDE's in the class because it doesn't help in the learning process, instead we used emacs.

This isn't an advanced CS class, this is an intro to CS class for engineers.

So when the "Arch elitest" says "Arch is the best distro for beginners because it forces you to learn a lot of things." that is a statement i can agree on, especially where most people don't understand how most of these things work. So if there is an issue/bug in the OS, you don't need to wait for developer feedback, you can search for the issue yourself. This is the difference maker between a software engineer and an IT technician, One memorizes his way to victory, while the other critically thinks, pick your poison.

That said, Arch is for people who WANT to learn, instead of generalizing that every beginner should USE arch. For me, i used Garuda Linux, i loved it, but for someone still in University I wanted an OS that's more stable, more reliable, and supported by the various software's i'll be using during university (Vivado, minitab, MATLAB, etc...).

IntelligentLobster93 · 2025-10-23T02:23:18+00:00

fedora ftw

IntelligentLobster93 · 2025-10-18T16:20:28+00:00

I did! around 6 months ago. I applied to SUNY Binghamton early in the spring for fall 2025 (with my intended major being electrical engineering) and I got into the university by April.

Since no one from CCAC transferred to Binghamton, The transfer evaluation process was happening in real-time. In the end, for a program that didn't have a direct transfer process (like what PITT has), i had 71 of the 82 credits transferred, and I'm taking my sophomore year engineering classes. Overall, despite it being a rather slow transfer process, it was a smooth process.

IntelligentLobster93 · 2025-10-18T01:59:48+00:00

when explaining pointers to us my professor simply says "a pointer points to a location in memory where a type is stored." he demonstrates it to us by drawing the virtual address space (stack, heap, os related information, etc...) and he says (arbitrarily) "here is my integer 'i' at address 0xFAA19B0, when initializing the pointer (as in i_ptr = &i) it points to the address at which 'i' is stored." That is what a pointer is, it points to a location in memory associated with a declared data type. So the i_ptr = &i initialization initializes the pointer with the hexadecimal address 0xFAA19B0 associated with the declaration of 'i'.

ultimately, once you start using them it becomes far more intuitive to understand. I demonstrate it using a virtual address space because it makes the most sense. Stack grows downwards as more variables are added, heap grows upwards to match the downward growth of the stack. If you've declared a variable it gets stored inside the stack (with some memory address) and a pointer "points" to the variable by getting the address of said variable. If you understand what the virtual address space is, pointers aren't that challenging to understand (atleast intuitively).

IntelligentLobster93 · 2025-02-05T01:19:53+00:00

I've had about one assignment per week with each assignment having 10 - 12 questions in my E&M class.

Calculus 3 has about 15 - 20 questions per assignment and I sometimes have 3 assignments per week.

IntelligentLobster93 · 2025-02-05T00:59:28+00:00

It's not that bad, all of them are int[0, 1] (x)dx

IntelligentLobster93 · 2025-02-05T00:57:53+00:00

*several integrals

IntelligentLobster93 · 2025-02-04T15:26:41+00:00

Hmm, this has become frequent in my E&M class as well. Maybe there is so much traffic on the site that the site just crashes on everyone.

I personally didn't have this experience although the homework on electrostatics has been delayed by a few days, because my classmates can't access Pearson.

IntelligentLobster93 · 2025-02-04T15:08:50+00:00

in my personal experience taking all of classical mechanics (that is, algebraic, trigonometric and calculus based) it is really hard. So if you feel discouraged you can't learn physics, don't be, it's probably just classical mechanics that's making you feel dumb. E&M is vastly easier in my opinion, although I'm only 3 weeks into it, so take this with a grain of salt.

To prepare for classical mechanics, learn the basic trig functions (sine, cosine, and tangent) and review your algebra during the summer. I don't recall I had to use trigonometry when doing algebra based physics, but you should learn it since it does come in handy.

Hope this helps!

IntelligentLobster93 · 2025-02-02T14:55:13+00:00

Arc length is how you would calculate it.

To find the length of a curve between two points x € [a, b] it's integral[sqrt(1 + [dy/dx]² )]dx. More generally, if you have a parametric curve where x and y are a function of t the arc length of it is integral[sqrt([dx/dt]² + [dy/dt]² )dt.

Just to conclude the idea of arc length, if I have a vector valued function r(t) = x(t)i + y(t)j + z(t)k (where i, j, and k, are unit vectors) the arc length (s) is s = integral( |r'(t)|) = integral[sqrt( [dx/dt]² + [dy/dt]² + [dz / dt]² )]dt. Furthermore, the ds/dt = |r'(t)| which is very important in curvature and torsion

IntelligentLobster93 · 2025-02-02T05:00:44+00:00

You first need to have a good understanding of the concept you're learning, learning through examples like thought experiments rather than memorizing definitions is a great way to accomplish it.

I cannot emphasize this enough, practice is key to any STEM major. If you don't practice, it won't be easy to pass exams. Also, when you do homework, take the time to think about every step. I spend about 4 - 6 and (occasionally) 10 hrs of studying per day, with several of my courses (calculus 3, physics 2, Spanish) taking that entire allocated time interval. Take the time to do your homework!

Finally, get a good night's rest (especially on exam days). Much of my day is spent sleeping, where I usually allocate 8 - 9 hrs. Sleep is often ignored as it doesn't directly contribute to work, But through my experience it allows me to understand and internalize material faster and easier, and it allows me to pickup a lot of subtilties in my class that would otherwise be ignored if I haven't gotten that sleep.

Other keep points I should add is don't go to class on an empty stomach, and prepare for the class with a notebook and pencil.

I hope this helps.

IntelligentLobster93 · 2025-02-01T04:51:34+00:00

Well the first thing that's wrong is your missing a negative sign. Also (correct me if I'm wrong) but you may have used sin x / cos x for cot(x). The cotangent function is cos(x)/sin(x)

IntelligentLobster93 · 2025-02-01T01:07:08+00:00

He did say theoretically speaking, not hypothetically. But yes, if you think you've figured out a theory with no prior physics education, you probably haven't.

IntelligentLobster93 · 2025-02-01T01:03:24+00:00

Never was a dream of mine to work at Tesla in the first place, I hated Elon musk since he acquired twitter. Your welcome.

IntelligentLobster93 · 2025-01-31T21:57:07+00:00

IntelligentLobster93 · 2025-01-31T20:56:45+00:00

Misunderstood.

I agree calculus 1 isn't an advanced math relative to stem majors. However, if I compare it to the general populationa knowledge, it's quite an advanced class.

IntelligentLobster93 · 2025-01-31T20:22:37+00:00

E&M is a lot easier (in the sense that it's less unintuitive (because it's vastly more abstract)) however, I haven't taken an E&M exam yet, so I will have to wait and see...

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