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Costs and Benefits of a Linux-Like Windows Development Environment

In this semester, I enter C ++ this semester, so I need to set up development environments on both my Windows partitions and Ubuntu (I switch between them). I planned to use GCC in both environments for consistency, and because I plan to do some serious C ++ development on Linux with GCC.

It seems that installing MSYS and MinGW is the best way to use GCC and replicate my Linux dev environment. However, just setting up MSYS and MinGW on Windows seems like a long and difficult process, and I assume that in the future I will have limitations or compatibility issues.

  • Do you know the benefits of setting up a development environment like MSYS Linux on Windows?
  • Will I be able to use all the libraries that I could use if I used Visual C ++?
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c ++ windows msys development-environment mingw
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I think you are mistaken, I would prefer you use Visual Studio in a Windows environment, instead of avoiding installing GCC. It is an advantage, not a disadvantage, to run your code on multiple compilers from multiple vendors.

Both GCC and Visual Studio are very compatible (at least the latest versions). You will not have problems with standard libraries and between them, and if you have problems, this is probably a problem in your code.

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I have always installed cygwin on Windows. For me, Windows is completely without use. I have never encountered the problems with the DLL mentioned above. However, I also rarely used the GCC compiler, so I don’t know how it compares with Visual Studio for general programming. For anything with a Windows GUI or Dot Net, I definitely stick with Visual Studio.

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If you stick with the automatic installer , installing MinGW is not painful. Unfortunately, you are currently getting GCC 3.4.5, not the new version 4.4.0, which they also provide to the sans installer.

In reality, of course, 3.4.5 will be fine, I suppose.

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Use gcc on Ubuntu and Visual Studio for Windows to access both. This is an intro-course, so Windows, Linux, Visual Studio, gcc are just the tools you need to manage C ++ and data structures. Mastering the tools will come over time, and they will change.

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I personally develop for Windows using a clean Linux environment, using mingw-gcc for Linux to cross-compile for Windows. I posted a tutorial on how to configure it for OpenSSL / Qt4 @ http://www.limitlessfx.com

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Do you do this to get .exe or just work on both OSs?

If you feel more comfortable with GCC than VC, setting up Mingw / Cygwin is possible, but does not give you new features (next to the EXE). Instead, I suggest you turn one of your partitions into a virtual machine - that way you can open both OSs right away! (My personal choice is Windows inside Linux, YMMV.)

The advantage of Linux development is the availability of many development tools and libraries. In addition, large assemblies are noticeably faster.

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Since you said, “I plan to do some serious C ++ development on Linux with GCC,” VC ++ may not be what you really want. Many libraries simply do not compile in VC ++. Try it yourself. Instead, consider running Linux on Windows. There are several ways to do this:

  • Use PuTTY to connect to the Linux machine and use Xming to see the user interface windows. I would only do this through the local network.
  • Consider coLinux . You can run Linux on Windows and just turn off Linux when you're done.
  • Consider other virtualization options, such as VMWare to run Linux. Just like coLinux, but it might be easier to configure.

You can even install Linux directly on your computer. You can always use tools like Wine or VMWare to start Windows if you need it.

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