Hi all. Just finished reading the post above about all the IDE's. Still not sure from what I read there. Here is what I am looking for: 1. Fairly simple to install, has a reliable debugger. (it seems like in Windows the thrill of a program was running it. In Linux it seems to be a successful install) Thats it. I like the feel of code blocks (on Windows) but scanning their forum makes it look like a complete horror for Linux users. Anyone have success with this without having to do brain surgury?(I know Promit said he got it working on a 64 bit machine) I have used KDevelop and it was pretty unforgiving. Guess I'm just not that smart yet. I have been looking all day and about everyone I have seen (used the list from the post above) gives me the chills reading about the problems and the methods used to fix them. Anyway, any help would be appreciated. Oh, and I know it will come up, I do not want to use vi or other text editors. Just personal preference. Looking for an IDE. (I like the pretty buttons. . .) Thanks.

Well using an IDE usually requires some background on compiling/linking/debuging and in linux also some gnu tools knowledge. So in my opinion, after that you could use Eclipse and its plugins and configure it to use gnutools (libtoolize, aclocal, autoconf, automake, ...)

Thanks for the reply. That was one of the options I looked at from the post above. Is that what you use? Eclipse just seemed to be bloated from all the options they are trying to cram in there. I'll try it but would prefer an IDE that was designed for C/C++ and not back fitted to work through plugins.

I use eclipse because its clean and its in java (thus its multi plataform). It works well with C/C++ but it isnt the greatest for sure yet. I also use vim because its a excelent editor and the most powerfull to write code in my opinion. But for large projects a project explorer its required. For compilation and distribution package I use gnutools. If you try to use it you will find that in one week they rock! I also used KDevelop but I prefer gnome. As far I know Code::Blocks use wxWidgets (I think) and its becoming a nice IDE. You can look at Eclipse features to compare them. At the end they are all the same shit but with diferent smell.. =)

Quote: Original post by IronGryphon
Oh, and I know it will come up, I do not want to use vi or other text editors. Just personal preference. Looking for an IDE. (I like the pretty buttons. . .)

To be completely honest, you are out of luck. The only pretty-buttoned GUI Linux IDE I've found stable and usable enough so far is Eclipse. Its C/C++ support leaves something to be desired but honestly, neither KDevelop or Anjuta is really better. KDevelop's feature list looks good on paper but in practice (I've tried almost every 3.x version) it has always been extremely buggy, which is a shame.

Personally I gave up the search for an IDE and just faced having to learn makefiles and autotools. IMO it has been worth it. Autotools is actually extremely flexible and useful when you need a bit more than just compiling every file and linking simple libraries. It is also very portable. I'm sure the same can be said for a number of other (simpler) build systems as well.

Some GUI apps I've found useful: kompare for handling diffs and patches, kdesvn for working with subversion projects, kwrite/kate are good if you don't want to learn vim or emacs. Take a look at kdbg as well.

Don't be afraid of the command prompt. That way you'll find using Linux much more enjoyable in the long run.

As you can see almost all in linux community shares the same opinion.. If you want to be in the light side of the force (linux side :)) then start learning bash, those gnutools, etc..

I appreciate your views on that but I spent too many years in dos to ever want to return to the command prompt. I know it is something that just can't be worked around (yet) in Linux but I am hopeful that dog will be drug out back and shot, burned, and put to rest eventually. I'll keep looking, thanks.

And I thought the light side of the force was supposed to be easy, helpful, friendly, and generally better than the dark side. Long way to go Linux. . .

There's Anjuta as well, which is quite similar to KDevelop but might be worth a look.

oops, someone already mentioned that. missed it...

No...

light side = hard to go! hard to keep going.. worth at the end
dark side = easy way to go.. just too easy to fall on..

:P