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Asked: 2026-05-11T17:46:26+00:00

I’ve been a Visual C++ user for quite some time now, and in the

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I’ve been a Visual C++ user for quite some time now, and in the following weeks, I will be joining a (C++) Linux-only project. It should be noted that I have absolutely zero development experience on Linux.

Currently, Visual C++ 9 along with the Visual Assist X add-in make Windows-based development rather enjoyable. Having looked at various C++ IDEs on Linux left me a little disappointed with the coding experience, however.

I’d love to be able to use my current tool set (see above) for Linux development, so I have a couple of questions:

  1. Can the VS editor convert between CR+LF <-> LF in a reliable manner?
  2. Is it possible to set up a system where if I press “Build” in the IDE all of my work gets transferred to another box (e.g., a virtual machine) running Linux that compiles my project?
  3. How would debugging work? Is it possible to remote-debug an application running in Linux via something like gdb? If so, would the “advanced” features of MS’s debugger (e.g., tracepoints, break-if-cond, etc.) be lost?

Is this even a sane thing to think of? Does anyone use a Windows environment for Linux development? If not, I guess I should just suck it up and move to a Linux environment all together…?

Any input is appreciated, as I feel a little lost right now.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I’ve done windows/linux/freebsd cross-platform development with Windows as my primary OS… so it is possible.

    • Use VS as editor.

    • Access Linux Dev node via SSH with
      putty.

    • Use revision control system
      (subversion/git/bazaar/mercurial/cvs)
      to check changes into repo & check
      changes out on Linux.

    • Use a multi-platform build process. I
      use SCons. It is python based
      and works beautifully – though it is
      a little slow with the default
      settings.

    • Launch build process from shell using
      putty.

    • Use additional shells as needed to
      attach gdb & debug.

    Now to answer your questions:

    1. Yes. There is a VS setting to say use unix line endings. Many revision control systems can also be configured to correct this for you.

    2. Maybe, but that’s not how I did it.

    3. Yes, you can remotely debug using GDB. GDB has many (all?) the features available with VS’s debuger but you have to learn the GDB commands. I don’t know of a way to use VS’s debugger to debug processes compiled with GCC – though this is a frequent request.

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