Run Gnu compiler under VMWare?

[me]

I'm an engineering student and taking C++ classes

At school, we use Linux OS and the Gnu compiler

Could I install VM Ware on my Windows desktop at home
and install/run Linux and Gnu compiler under a VM so
would be able to compile at home easily?

 

[DeMarcus]

I'm an engineering student and taking C++ classes

At school, we use Linux OS and the Gnu compiler

Could I install VM Ware on my Windows desktop at home
and install/run Linux and Gnu compiler under a VM so
would be able to compile at home easily?

Just do it. I can recommend openSUSE.
www.opensuse.org

Make sure you install development tools during the installation of
Linux, then you have gcc to play around with.

/DeMarcus

 

[John H.]

At school, we use Linux OS and the Gnu compiler
Could my Windows desktop be able to compile at home easily?

You might look into the Cygwin project. It provides a Linux like
environment on Windows, including g++ (versions 3 and 4):
http://www.cygwin.com/

There is also the MinGW project which gives you g++ on a Windows:
http://www.mingw.org/

 

[me]

Yes

Ok great guys!!

Sounds like many options for what I want to do

I would go totally Linux but DO have windows app's I
must use for engineering school as well

 

[me]

P.S. If you're writing (reasonably sane) standard C++ (which you may or
may not be), you could also just use a Windows compiler to test your
code. Microsoft Visual C++ Express is free to download.

Yeah I thought abt that..... hmm..... but I've no
experience with that compiler at all

Is it "safe"? The code I write (baby programs).....
must be submitted via Linux OS and must compile and run
under G++.

Is there any chance writing and testing at home on the
MS VC++ will "break" anything? again I have no
experience with it

 

[Michael Tsang]

Ok great guys!!

Sounds like many options for what I want to do

I would go totally Linux but DO have windows app's I
must use for engineering school as well

Run these app in Wine on Linux

 

[Jorgen Grahn]

There is a good chance that the code which you write in MSVC++ will not
compile with gcc, or has slightly different behavior. Also, MS has
declared most of POSIX functions "deprecated", which is quite annoying.
Also, there are so many different features, libraries, layers and options
present with MSVC++ that if you don't know exactly what you are doing,
you may easily get lost. Also, Windows has no support of UTF-8 locales,
which are the default in Linux.

On the other hand, MSVC++ has very nice debugger, which is extremely
helpful for finding out what some code is actually doing.

On the third hand, Linux has valgrind. And does the free Microsoft
compiler come with the debugger?

In short, if your goal is to produce Linux-only software, then using
MSVC++ for that will probably have an adverse effect.

If he has the energy to set up both, I think that's a good thing.
Experience with different compilers cannot be a bad thing (as long as
they are good compilers).

But the biggest problem is probably the exercises themselves. We
don't know anything about them, but chances are they use Unix-specific
libraries or functionality. A pure C++ program can't do GUIs, TCP/IP
and stuff like that.

/Jorgen