Question

I´m a completely newbie and i like to know which environment can you recommend me for programming in C++, i mean Operating System (if Linux, Ubuntu is a right option?), IDE, etc. maybe i have to create a virtual machine?

Answer 1

Linux is easily one of the most elegant environments, because it has a sane policy for handling packages and versions and libraries and include paths.

Basically, you can install a compiler and any common development library with a single clean command (e.g. aptitude install libpng-dev), and everything is taken care of. You can also install any number of build systems (make, autotools, cmake, …), and they’re immediately available without any further setup.

Most importantly, Linux is build around being able to compile source, so literally almost every executable in the system is load-time linked against the C (and possibly C++) standard libraries, which are shipped with the distribution.

Windows by comparison has none of those features. There is no all-purpose, system-wide runtime library, so everything you compile has to be carefully set up and crafted into a special build environment. Moreover, almost any terminal emulator I know for Linux is by far faster than any Windows console. You also have text manipulation tools (less, grep, find) readily available in Linux. Finally, there are great editors (Emacs, Vi), and there’s valgrind.