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I have installed ubuntu snappy but I can't find apt-get which is not a problem but I can't find some packages as vim... Which is the best Ubuntu version to install ? What are the pros and cons ?

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    Ubuntu snappy is a hybrid, very different from a normal Ubuntu desktop or server (I think it is targeted more at IoT). If you are looking for something closer to the regular Ubuntu setup try Ubuntu mate ubuntu-mate.org/raspberry-pi. As for the relative pros and cons this question should help - especially @joan answer
    – Steve Robillard
    Commented Sep 14, 2015 at 11:32
  • @SteveRobillard thank you ! What are the issues installing normal Ubuntu distrib ? I want to build up a hadoop cluster so I need some light weight Ubuntu distrib
    – epsilones
    Commented Sep 14, 2015 at 11:33
  • a normal Ubuntu distro is not compiled for the arm processor in the Pi. I wouldn't be too worried about the weight of the distro for your use case (hadoop) but rather the low level of specs/performance of the Pi. You can combine 40 VW beetles, but you still won't have a Porsche.
    – Steve Robillard
    Commented Sep 14, 2015 at 11:36
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    WRT the absence of apt-get, Snappy uses its own package manager.
    – goldilocks ♦
    Commented Sep 14, 2015 at 14:34

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These are the choices I'm aware of for the Pi 2:

  1. Snappy, which is specialized and uses a read-only filesystem.

  2. A normative Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with PPA's for pi specific stuff.

  3. A Mate based 15.04 distro pointed out by Steve.

  4. Using any Ubuntu ARMv7 distro and adapting it appropriately (that talks about Fedora, but the methodology is the same for any GNU/Linux system). Since these are mostly likely LTS releases, there's not much point in this in light of #2.

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  • thank you, could you point out examples of pi specific stuff
    – epsilones
    Commented Sep 14, 2015 at 15:58
  • If you read the link about adapting Fedora ARM you'll get the idea (it's all indicated there); in particular see the note at the bottom about /opt/vc. The pi needs a special out-of-tree kernel, and that plus the bootloader firmware are crucial. However, you don't need a pi-specific distro to get them as they are maintained in an independent git repo; how easy or hard you'd find that depends on how comfortable you are with linux, basic filesystem structure, etc. Then there's various libraries for the GPU (also in the repo), and a handful of apps such as omxplayer and raspicam stuff.
    – goldilocks ♦
    Commented Sep 14, 2015 at 16:10

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