[Huzi94]

Hello,
I would like to know which linux distro would be the best for programming in C/C++.

[anonymouscodder]

The best thing by using linux and other unix-like operating systems is the console usage. I am never comfortable in a Windows environment, with Linux you can replace boring tasks with simple shell scripts (more powerful than batch files, simpler then PowerShell) and is very easy to set up your "programming environment".

Choose a solid distro that you are comfortable with.

[Sergio Tapia]

I can' say which is best, because I haven't really used more than 4 distros but here are my thoughts.

1. Ubuntu
Simple to use, install drivers for you without troubles, compiz comes built in so you can have many desktops out of the box. Comes with Python.

2. Mint
Even MORE easy to use. Comes with everything and then some. You can use the Mint software app to install things extremely simple. You can choose which app to install very quickly, Geany, Eclipse, etc. Seriously, turn off your brain and it works. Looks great out of the box too. No 'shit-stain-ubuntu- theme.

3. Fedora
Really fast to boot and install applications is easy as well (althought not as easy as Mint). Mouse froze up for me one too many times so I haven't used it much.

[baavgai]

The standard C/C++ toolset for Linux is GCC. Much of what people think of as "linux" is built using these tools. Every distro will come with them or have them easily added; they are fundamental to the building the distro itself.

GCC is command line driven. If the command line works for you, virtually any distro will do.

There are various IDEs available that essentially wrap gcc. If you want such tools, question then is how easy is it to install them.

While Ubuntu is kind of the everyman distro, and doesn't come with the build tools by default, it's very simple to get them loaded. I use ubuntu, more due to laziness than anything else, and getting it setup for C/C++ dev is as easy as this command:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

[Tom9729]

There is no "best linux distro for programming". They generally all have the same software, none of them ship the programming tools as part of the default install. Pick a popular well supported distro, find out how to install GCC, and get programming.

I really recommend Qt Creator for C/C++. It's free, light-weight (especially compared to Eclipse and Netbeans), and it comes with a ton of examples. It's really focused for Qt development but there's nothing stopping you from just writing plain C or C++ programs in it.

http://qt.nokia.com/...eveloper-tools/

You can also use it on Windows where it comes bundled with MinGW, the Windows port of GCC.



Edit: added screenshot of Qt Creator on my system...

This post has been edited by Tom9729: 01 July 2010 - 06:30 PM

[baavgai]

Tom9729, on 01 July 2010 - 07:27 PM, said:

I really recommend Qt Creator for C/C++.

I strongly agree. If you're a C++ programmer on Linux, Qt is simply the best framework you can get.

The Qt Creator, while exclusively C++, is one the best IDEs I've seen for Linux. It also runs exactly the same on Windows and programs written in it can be truly cross platform. With a lot less dependency cruft than most.

Edit: Oooo, Tom9729, how did you set up the pretty colors?

This post has been edited by baavgai: 02 July 2010 - 06:57 AM

[markovski]

Well, im using #! (Crunchbang linux). It`s cool non-commercial distro, ideal for programming.
It is based on Debian, similar to ubuntu, yet using OpenBox instead Gnome. I would recommend you this distro.

[baavgai]

Crunchbang is based on Ubuntu, not Debian. It's toolset should be identical to that with regular Ubuntu. However, since some more GUI tools prefer Gnome or KDE, you might be limiting yourself. ( Yes, it's Gtk heavy, but that's not the same as Gnome. )

[xclite]

I like the Crunchbang interface setup - it's very intuitive and configured quite well with keyboard shortcuts.

[bocaccio]

Great post!!! I am about to put linux on my asus eee netbook. This will help me decide. Thanks!!

[Tom9729]

baavgai, on 02 July 2010 - 08:55 AM, said:

Edit: Oooo, Tom9729, how did you set up the pretty colors?

I'm using the Desert scheme, I think I got it here. I've also attached it to this post in case that link goes down.

Put it in /usr/share/qtcreator/styles/ for Linux.

 desert.xml (1.63K)
Number of downloads: 338

[baavgai]

Excellent. I threw it in /opt/qtcreator-2.0.0/share/qtcreator/styles on my install. Worked fine. If I could just get the add the the default styles, it would be perfect.

[bocaccio]

Right now I will say that I am using Ubuntu Netbook Remix and will code Python and C# with netbeans and eclipse. If you choose this you can get pretty much anything you need in Synaptic Package Manager

[programble]

baavgai, on 02 July 2010 - 09:08 AM, said:

Crunchbang is based on Ubuntu, not Debian. It's toolset should be identical to that with regular Ubuntu. However, since some more GUI tools prefer Gnome or KDE, you might be limiting yourself. ( Yes, it's Gtk heavy, but that's not the same as Gnome. )

This is only true for Crunchbang versions before 10. The new 10 (Statler) release of Crunchbang is switched to a Debian base.

On topic:
Pretty much any distro is great for programming. Choose one that you feel comfortable with.

This post has been edited by programble: 22 July 2010 - 03:08 PM