So since I am unable to use andLinux for my 64bit computer, I am looking at using Linux. Linux Mint if anyone is curious.

I wanted to know if anyone could recommend an IDE I could use. Preferrably something similar to Visual Studio though I'm open to new things.

Almost all my development has been done using notepad++ and cygwin, so I doubt I'm too picky. Something that's useful and easy to understand is perfect.

I like RubyMine for Ruby and Netbeans for everything else.

http://netbeans.org/

I'm a bit confused as to what you mean by IDE. notepad++ is just a text-editor, I believe. If you mean syntax highlighting and things of that nature, there's a huge number of options to choose from. I use vim, which has a pretty steep learning curve and most people hate. Before vim, I used jed. jed and vim are both console apps. If you want a full-featured IDE, I believe KDevelop is nice, also, but I haven't used it in years, and there is also Eclipse, which I found to be far too slow.

I use vim. Seems like a lot of people in this community do, actually.

Also, a lot of these IDEs these days can use vim as the editor interface. That's exactly what I do in RubyMine.

If you're not looking for something as full featured as KDevelop you can check out Kate, it's the text editor used in KDevelop, but doesn't have all the "interaction". I prefer Kate to just about anything ;). I find KDevelop to be a little to bulky for my tastes; even though it uses Kate, I just don't use the extra features.

These of course, require you to use KDE as opposed to gnome, which is a problem for some people.

I use Netbeans for PHP and C/C++ at home.

Visual Studio is an IDE, isn't it? I assumed an IDE was a text editor, compiler, and file viewer type thing all pushed into one nice little compact toy to play with. I really like being able to easily navigate, open, and edit files like in Visual Studio. I also find it really cool that it highlights and lets you know when it finds easy to catch conflicts.

I've only had Visual Studio for a few days, before that I was a notepad++ guy. Since I'm likely switching to Linux (if I enjoy the feel of it) I wanted something similar to VS. That's what I meant by IDE.

Linux Mint uses a gnome interface. It seems to be just a more compact version of Ubuntu + a bunch of codecs. Also it's more stable. I was at work today using google to see which is "best."

Also, if I were to use KDE (apparently Linux mint makes a KDE version too) What's the real advantage disadvantage? Damn Linux has so many freaking flavors!

Yes, and correct.


You'll want something like KDevelop, Eclipse, or netbeans (I've used it, but can't remember anything about it). Depending on what language you'll be utilizing, there may be other/better options as well. There are quite a few others available, I'm sure. If you're unhappy with those or want a lot more information, the wikipedia Comparison of IDEs may be of use.


It's personal preference. Some people love KDE, some people hate KDE. I prefer KDE to Gnome, but prefer to avoid "Desktop Environments" in favor of light-weight window managers. It shouldn't matter much which window manager you want to use, just find something you like that does what you want.

[Edit: Also, note that you don't actually have to use KDE to use KDevelop, it'll just require you to have some/all of KDE installed to do so.]

You can integrate vim with the build process decently, and be able to easily go to lines with compiler errors etc. Of course, as was said, there is a learning curve, but for anything involving text editing I find vim to be vastly superior to standard text editors. (Of course, the fact that I've been using it for 12+ years might have something to do with that: I know it rather well, and have very many shortcuts in finger-memory. My initial usage of vim was a little less fluid…)

I seem to remember a vim tutorial that's hands on which was pretty useful when I first started using it.

I recommend Why, oh WHY, do those #?@! nutheads use ... for people who are curious about why they might want to learn vim, and Graphical vi-vim Cheat Sheet and Tutoria... for people interested in learning to use it. That article convinced me to try it, pretty much, and that tutorial taught me to use it. I can't imagine using anything else now.

Note for people intimidated by all the buttons: I probably use less than half of vim's functionality, and I still find it vastly more efficient than any other editor.

I prefer gvim in Linux. Having a strong windows background it does a few things for you that make search and replace a bit
easier than in straight console. Also you can take advantage of 256 color schemes without any extra hassle. I still prefer
console for everything else. As far as debuggers in Linux, I really like CGDB.

BTW, I do love Linux Mint. I've been using it as my main OS for about 2 months now. What are you going with GNOME or KDE?

I use straight vim, and 256 colors or 24-bit RGB depending on whether or not the terminal allows it.

Search and replace is as "easy" as:
:s/text to search/text to replace<enter>
:tongue:

Mint is a derivative of Ubuntu, right? What's its advantage over normal Ubuntu?

At first glance vim seems arcane. It may be arcane in some ways. Even the most common commands are hidden away or obscure. However, I've found it to be fantastic once you spent a few minutes learning the basics. It has increased my productivity dramatically over the years. As David says, rather quickly it all gets committed to muscle memory and you'll find yourself utterly slowed down using anything else. In any event, indeed, you can have the basics down in the first few minutes of tutorializing. By basics I mean search, replace, and basic cursor manipulation. Most people I've known that gave it a shot abandoned it rather quickly particularly because of the edit mode interface.

gnome

I guess your right, that is pretty stinkin' easy. I might have been thinking for multiple files.

I wouldn't say that mint is so much of a derivative as it is supplemental to Ubuntu. Whenever theres new features added
to ubuntu it is added to the lates Mint version as well. It's sort of wrapper in the sense that it adds some GUI sugar and
driver support. The goal more or less from what I've read is to be a bit more aesthetically pleasing and to support as many devices / apps as possible. However, I can't say that it is better than Ubuntu, just a bit different.

Try:
:%s/text to search/text to replace<enter>

that will do the substitution for every open file, or more precisely open buffer. (Of course, you need to have the files open first.)

Really? I don't see how you could ever have "too much" or too many features. Are you talking about being too flashy?




Thats nice, I guess you could just open all your source files in vim at once from bash and then run that script.

He'd probably want :%s/foo/bar/g, and, anyway, the c (confirm) option merits mention at this point.

To whomever else:
%s/foo/bar/gc will replace all instances of "foo" in a file with "bar", including multiple times per line (g), asking for confirmation each step ©. I tend to use c myself, because I always think of seemingly innocuous replacements that garble text I'd forgotten about, so I just walk through and confirm to be on the safe side.