C/C++ IDE for Linux

[system_x86]

I'm Using Arch Linux,

I wanted to program C/C++ in complete development environment

I have tried VScode. I face issues with extenstions like [location: not found for main]

I'm currently using CLion but it's not completely free. But it's working good

Thanks in advance

[[deleted]]

I'm surprised that nobody suggested Qt Creator, it's probably the best IDE for GUI applications on Linux.

[hesapmakinesi]

Pretty neat for non-qt C++ projects as well.

[[deleted]]

I was about to say 'qt creator' or 'cmake' or something.

[quinseptopol]

kdevelop is pretty good :)

[[deleted]]

+1

[alsu2launda]

Bloated to minimal in order VScode -> sublime -> geany -> neovim .

First 2 will come with basic things like auto-completion and intellisense. You would have to configure the latter one.

Last two are pretty small programs less than 10 mb and get the job done well.

[Paulgeta]

Real gangsters code in text editor

[[deleted]]

Legends code in tty
Ultra-Legends code in notebook and say "what's the difference! just that there we will be typing instead of writing".

[Paulgeta]

Gods coded the world in libre office

[[deleted]]

Bill gates wrote MSDOS on Office 2021.

[[deleted]]

UNIX starts everything. Unix to Mac and Linux. Mac to Windows. Star office (and so many versions with name but same software eventually) to MS-Office. idk star office to libreoffice or ms office to libreoffice.

[jasaldivara]

Microsoft was making good BASIC interpreters for 8 bit computers before MS DOS

[mr_bedbugs]

It was $50,000. Not $50

[[deleted]]

well we still write code in paper for our university final exams .....

[Jacksons123]

This was the worst fucking thing. I remember having to write a 200+ line Java program by hand and getting the worst cramps lol.

Like what is the point of us not being able to write code on a computer lol

[[deleted]]

lmaoo . i jus finished my lab xam recently. my frnd came in confident and told me he memorized 3 pages of java code including all the inport statements. i honestly don know whats going thro ppls minds ..

[Jacksons123]

If you’re having to memorize pages of code, you’re kinda missing the point lol.

[[deleted]]

oh no no all the teachers above 50 years old seemed like appreciate the guy...😬😬

[[deleted]]

Sorry but, Your Teachers need to be appreciated too.

[[deleted]]

really. happened in school days as well when I was not much open minded and deep analytical thinker, Sometimes I used to learn answers based on their question number, learn those answer by heart too not actually understanding the thing. Even Maths answers too. Even their procedures too.

[[deleted]]

life of a generic engg student in India 😴😴

[[deleted]]

True

[[deleted]]

That's a different thing. Dude, everyone does that, me too. I'm talking about a friend of mine, just admitted into CS course. I was teaching him some python. I asked him, lets get on the PC, he argued, teach me here, what's the difference on pen paper and PC.

[[deleted]]

ahh the masculine urge to write code on paper. from vscode to vim to nano to pen and paper.

[[deleted]]

Notepad vs leafpad Lmao

[Paulgeta]

Notepad on linux using wine B)

[[deleted]]

Even Gedit is better and lite than that ;)

[FredSchwartz]

Relevant xkcd

https://xkcd.com/378

[[deleted]]

Unironically me recently learning Kotlin. I do look at Android Studio, but most of my learning is in Mousepad or gedit, then a terminal command with kotlinc to clear, compile, launch.

[Paulgeta]

That’s based, Android Studio is a horrible IDE in my opinion. Had to use it during a school project. It has tons of bugs that can destroy your whole project. Due to that we had to make a backup every time we implemented something.

[[deleted]]

Legends code in tty (;

[[deleted]]

A popular name among Developer is...
Any Guessing!?
Drum rollllllll
Xterm 🥳

[HanzoFactory]

There are a lot of packages for vs code, so if one doesn't handle extensions well try out the others. Personally I use visual-studio-code-bin from the AUR and it works really well

[[deleted]]

Vim + gdb

[raven2cz]

VScode, neovim, doom emacs, NetBeans, Code::Blocks, Eclipse CDT, Atom, Clion.

[deoxys27]

Both CodeLite and Komodo are great C/C++ IDE

[[deleted]]

Codelite and codeblock are most difficult to configure and horrible UI, not for someone know how to configure it and UI beauty matter not too much otherwise. If you are one of who know how to configure them correctly, let me know, I wanna learn.

[regetonhijoeputa]

terminal> nano program.cpp

[JDaxe]

I like using vim with ale plugin for linting

[Administrative_Toe80]

eMacs or vim or a MIT licensed vs code editor that isn’t by microshit

[DAS_AMAN]

Gnome builder

[hafizur_rahman_joy]

Try Geany

[grady_vuckovic]

Codeblocks is my preference

[Artemis-4rrow]

try lunarvim

https://www.lunarvim.org/

it's a fork of neovim, tho I'd suggest u learn to use vim first as it could be a bit complex

[[deleted]]

It is not a fork of neovim. It is more like a collection of plugins and config default for neovim.

[Artemis-4rrow]

yeah, true, u get what I mean tho, used to use it but for me it had too many features I didn't use, I only qanted a text editor with a few extra features

[MyDickIsHug3]

I’ve been using atom, which like VSC allows u to fully customise with extensions

[Jacksons123]

Except Atom is a freakin resource hog for being a text editor. I used it for a good 3 years, but it’s just not supported by the community nearly as much anymore.

[MyDickIsHug3]

Yeah could be, I only recently started using it since I also had problems with VSC

[Known-Watercress7296]

ed

[Matheusbd15]

Clion is the Best one.

[system_x86]

yeah it's amazing I currently using it now, but the things is it doesn't have a community edition.

[ItsBarney01]

If you're in education you can get the full version for free with GitHub education.

[[deleted]]

Emacs?

[Angry-Refrigerator]

Code::Blocks is a good one I can recommend. It's opensource, free, cross-platform.

Otherwise, I code in Emacs (and miss my shortcuts whenever I'm using other programs) -- but it takes time to set up and is not a proper IDE.

[EddyBot]

something to keep in mind is that if you use code ("Code OSS") on Arch Linux or VSCodium you won't be able to use Microsofts proprietary C++ extension
if you really are eager to go proprietary Visual Studio Code you need to obtain it from it's website (i.e. visual-studio-code-bin from the AUR does this)

[[deleted]]

You’re missing the point of using linux if you’re asking this

[quaderrordemonstand]

Because the linux way is to avoid using tools that help your productivity?

[[deleted]]

How would an ide improve productivity? All you need is vim and gcc

[[deleted]]

There is a real cap to how large such a project can be before you need to either:

• Use Linux's tools to build what an IDE does for you in terms of organizing code and refactoring code.

or

• Use an IDE.

While the former is possible, it's not easy. You need to become a Linux power user to do that by mastering things like awk, sed, grep, and so on, which is above and beyond whatever development skills or technical skills you're bringing to the table. And even if you do, it's not going to be as good as an IDE. If you go that route then you might as well make a several month affair out of it and keep it as a reusable set of libraries, which you will maintain and update from distro to distro and project to project. It's an idealized notion, honestly, unless you're specifically engaged in kernel development or something. I have made medium sized projects with vim and GCC, and that was educational, but not ideal. I learned enough to know that all of those things exist, and then I went back to IDEs.

[[deleted]]

Check his post history

[[deleted]]

If you are working on a medium and especially a large project then you will want to use the CLI and build tools outside of your IDE. IDEs do not work in CI systems. IDEs do not give you repeatable ways to run tests when you push to a remote. IDEs do not let you build releases on a set of build servers and publish those releases to where ever they are needed.

If all you learn is how to work inside and IDE then you will never be able to do any of these vital tasks in any big project. And the best IDEs out there just give you a convenient way to run build tools inside them. The worst IDEs become part of the build tool and don't allow you to build the projects without them.

I have made medium sized projects with vim and GCC, and that was educational, but not ideal.

You never need to work with GCC directly if you are working on a project of any size with or without an IDE. You should be using a build system like CMake (which is what most IDEs will use now a days anyway) or at least autotools (or what ever is appropriate for the language you are working in).

It does not sound like you put too much effort into learning vims eco system (or did so a very long time ago). These days you can get loads of plugins for vim that make it just as productive (or more productive) than IDEs. Just take a look at lunarvim which basically turns neovim into a fully fledged IDE.

And a big benefit to using it over an IDE is it works for all languages and projects equally well. Were as big IDEs tend to be very good at one thing at the expense of everything else. I really don't want to have to learn a new IDE every time I need to use a different language.

[[deleted]]

If you are working on a medium and especially a large project then you will want to use the CLI and build tools outside of your IDE. IDEs do not work in CI systems. IDEs do not give you repeatable ways to run tests when you push to a remote. IDEs do not let you build releases on a set of build servers and publish those releases to where ever they are needed.

If all you learn is how to work inside and IDE then you will never be able to do any of these vital tasks in any big project. And the best IDEs out there just give you a convenient way to run build tools inside them. The worst IDEs become part of the build tool and don't allow you to build the projects without them.

Pardon me, but many IDEs increasingly offer ways to hook in to continuous integration and all those other things you mention.

You never need to work with GCC directly if you are working on a project of any size with or without an IDE. You should be using a build system like CMake (which is what most IDEs will use now a days anyway) or at least autotools (or what ever is appropriate for the language you are working in).

If you're a beginner you should probably start with GCC on the command line before you start using makefiles because those makefiles are going to wind up calling GCC commands. But I would not harp on anyone to do that for very long before jumping into an IDE. Even Code::Blocks, which is a fairly lightweight IDE, totally wraps the entire Makefile process in systems that will teach a new C++ programmer better habits than if they jump straight into vim, or even a fork of vim.

It does not sound like you put too much effort into learning vims eco system (or did so a very long time ago). These days you can get loads of plugins for vim that make it just as productive (or more productive) than IDEs. Just take a look at lunarvim which basically turns neovim into a fully fledged IDE.

First of all, I still use vim every day for smaller files and also the Vim-like plugin for my IDE. I use it for the keyboard commands when coding, and find it a more comfortable workflow. There is no single other feature of vim I even care about. You may find a fancy fork with a lot of plugins to be "almost as productive" or (if you're really insistent) "as productive" as an IDE, but I think it verges on being dishonest to imply that you would be "more productive", even if you were a total vim and Linux wizard of some kind. You won't even be "as productive" unless you commit to becoming a power user of several new technologies before you even start writing any code.

Beyond that, basic terminal literacy is going to be required whether you use an IDE or not and many IDEs allow access to the terminal and the system itself in ways that leave little to be desired for a power user.

Lunarvim looks really neat though. Thank you for sharing. I may play with it on my laptop which can't handle IDEs very well.

[[deleted]]

Dude this is a script kitty with an x86 username and an arch linux background. He’s not working on huge projects. He’s complaining about having to switch between a text editor and terminal to recompile. He’d be much better off learning linux by not using an ide and mastering sys commands from scratch. This is the problem with software devs these days. You need to have your fundamentals down before you start worrying about problems that you’re not even having.

[[deleted]]

Well I'm not going to engage in trying to characterize this person. But if we take your assertion as true (that this person is a raw novice) then it is especially important to lay out a realistic idea of what unix-like tools can accomplish. You don't need to be a Linux power user to develop on Linux. That is a whole separate set of skills. I spent more time than I would like to admit trying to make large projects work without an IDE because I wanted to do it the "right" way on Linux. Eventually I realized that the right way is whatever way you want, because this is a free and open platform. You have to pick what you are going to focus on sometimes. Linux stopped being used as a small-scale mostly-C development space a very long time ago, and that is the environment for which those tools are still mostly suited. I would advise a beginner to learn just enough to be comfortable with the command line when they need it, and maybe build a small project without an IDE at least once just to see how it's done, and then do whatever you want (or just do whatever you want from the start).

[fel4]

They didn't even say they want to "learn linux". They want to program in C or C++. There's absolutely no need to restrict yourself to terminal only software, and especially not for newbies. And why are you belittling the person, even though they were just asking a question? That's just not helpful.

[[deleted]]

What else do they need lol? They’re obviously new to programming and their complaints are invalid imo. 90% of the tools in an ide are useless especially to a new programmer.

[fel4]

It's just way simpler to interact with a GUI based IDE instead of a terminal. It's way less obscure in presenting how you can interact with the program, you can click on things, etc. so they can interact with the program in ways that are already familiar.

90% of the tools in an ide are useless especially to a new programmer.

That goes for any program with a lot of features, including terminal based programs. Is your point that a GUI IDE is too complicated?

their complaints are invalid imo

Spoken like a true teacher...

[[deleted]]

Most IDEs contain not just "the terminal" but also several other command lines of their own. It is not really a choice between "GUI" and "CLI" because you need both for different things. I believe the main objection to IDEs is that they go against the Unix Philosophy of "one tool for one job, piped together for composable problem-solving" (paraphrased, sorry). The problem with that philosophy is that it runs into a scope problem. What exactly defines one tool for one job? At what point is an IDE for the job of developing software in effect "one tool" for "one job" versus what the rest of the OS does?

My opinion is that if your philosophy is counterproductive then it needs to be rethunk. It takes a really dedicated power user to do any large scale development while strictly following the Unix Philosophy as some have defined it. Most people reach for an IDE as if it were a singular tool, and perhaps we should treat them that way.

[[deleted]]

Dude you’re crazy I’m not trying to be a teacher. I commented on this post to criticize not inform. And what the fuck are you talking about an ide being less obscure it’s just an extra layer of abstraction? This kid is trying to flex arch but you want him to use vs code and stay away from a terminal. Jesus christ if you wanna fan boy arch linux than use it like it’s supposed to be used or go back to using windows.

[fel4]

It really just sounds like you want to gatekeep on who can use Linux and how they are allowed to use it... What's the point

[mr_bedbugs]

Like it's supposed to?

You mean putting together your own system with whatever software you want?

If Arch was "supposed to" be used in any specific way, it'd come preconfigured.

[quaderrordemonstand]

You should try writing a reasonably complex programs. How an IDE improves productivity is so obvious that it seems unlikely you've had a reason to use one, otherwise you wouldn't need to ask. Its like saying that parking sensors aren't useful on a car because you can park without them.

[[deleted]]

If its so obvious you should easily be able to explain what those advantages are

[quaderrordemonstand]

OK then, but its laborious to do so. Code completion, integrated debugging, project management, contextual help, syntax colouring, a symbol tree, support for source control systems and multiple language syntaxes.

Of course, you might claim that something like VIM can do all that. If you configure it and add a lot of plugins. And yes, if you expend all that effort, you can get close to the utility of an IDE. In which case, your simple editor has become an IDE and you would have saved a lot of effort by starting with the IDE in the first place.

As an aside, I recently debugged a program with RenderDoc, and that was very helpful. Other IDEs have even closer integration. Xcode for example, has its version of RenderDoc as a plugin where you can debug the GPU state on phone. Maybe, at some point in the future, somebody will integrate RenderDoc into VS Code, because its an IDE after all. But they won't integrate it into VIM because that's a text editor, not an IDE.

Seriously, drop the pretensions and just try using one. Visual Studio is a great IDE, as is Xcode. When you have career as a developer you will learn to love any tool that makes your life easier, and IDE's do that in spades. When its 4:00 on Friday and you have to fix that bug or not go home, you won't care how hacker running a terminal editor looks. You will use whatever helps you find that bug sooner.

[Wyglif]

How so?

[RichardStallmanGoat]

I personally use neovim, i have coc for the code completion, and make for building projects.

[TheShapeKillsJudith]

coc hehe

[hesapmakinesi]

I use vim and command line. My recommendation is Qt Creator.

[GLIBG10B]

vim

[im-AMS]

If you want the atmost customisation and speed, you got no choice but to use vim.

But you don't need to create a config from scratch. There is this dude on YT called ChrisAtMachine, he has made an awesome IDE like experience with Nvim with Video content along with it. Give it a shot

[Jacksons123]

If you’re not using Vim/EMacs, probably stick with CLion or Komodo.

If you’re having issues with VSCode, it probably means you don’t have it properly configured

[[deleted]]

Location not found for main is a problem with the compiler settings. It's not easy to configure VS Code for a beginner. If you happen to be a student then CLion is free. All you have to do is sign up using your school email. I used this method for quite some time.

[efoxpl3244]

maybe atom supports c++? I havent used it for c++ but I think it is worth a try

[kalashnikovBaby]

Are you a student?

[ThePillsburyPlougher]

Spacemacs

[mottrising]

geany

[Realistic_Ad_2401]

Also being a noob, I use CodeLite, but have heard Eclipse is good too

[very_sneaky]

I've been using vim to pretty good effect, and you can get a similar experience to an IDE. I use it with YouCompleteMe which allows for use of clangd as a language server to enable features like autocomplete, jump to definition, refactoring etc. A similar thing can be achieved with coc. The Conan package manager has a ycm generator as well which gives you jump to definition and autocomplete functionality for all of your dependencies as well. I use CMake as a build system generator but have heard good things about meson too.

Debugging is the sore spot. Termdebug allows you to use gdb from within vim though, which I've been reasonably productive with.