Linux Programming.

[HolyGrenade]

Does anybody know any good websites or books or online (pdf) books for programming C++ in Linux. Especially graphical programming like X-Windows.

Is OpenGL Programming using C++ in linux any different from Windows. Also, What is Mesa?

Any Help will be appreciated.

Thanx.


<font color=red><i>Tomorrow I will live, the fool does say
today itself's too late; the wise lived yesterday

 

[Kelledin]

For programming C++ in Linux...well...

Most of the programming I know comes from googling for HOWTOs or from reading man pages. For X11 programming, I'd advise you to learn to program for a widget set--learn to code for Motif, gtk, qt, or the like. Motif is old and clunky, but ubiquitous; gtk is newer and nicer looking (especially with non-default themes) but not quite as ubiquitous; and qt is rather elegant and feature rich (but designed primarily for C++, not C).

As for OpenGL programming...how different it is between Windows and Linux depends on how low-level you get with it. If you are in the habit of using GLU and the glut for handling things like window initialization and management, your code should be fairly portable. If you're in the habit of going behind OpenGL and using O/S-specific means to initialize windows and handle input devices...expect to do a lot of code re-working.

As for Mesa, Mesa is really the definitive OpenGL library for Linux (and several other *NIX variants). It's not 100% OpenGL-compatible and doesn't claim to be, but it is so close that you can generally compile and run OpenGL code under Mesa with little or no reworking.

As XFree86 has been developed with more acceleration capabilities, Mesa has become integrated with XFree86 (except for the GLUT). This enables efficient hardware acceleration of OpenGL on certain supported hardware (such as ATI Rage128/Radeon, MGA, and nVidia accelerators).

Kelledin

"/join #hackerz. See the Web. DoS interesting people."

 

[HolyGrenade]

Cool man! Thanx! Its just I had Linux installed on my system for over a year now. I don't think I've used it since I installed it. I think it was Redhat Version 5. Now I re-partitioned my harddrive because of win98se crappiness and installed RH7.1 on one of the partitions. This time I intend to use it. Kind of as my main OS for things except gaming. Win98se for that! I also got win2k somewhere.

As I am no longer a student, software is more expensive and Linux looks extremely appealing. I'll try to do my precious programming in Linux. Gonna have to look at a few IDEs. Do you know of any good ones?

Do you prefer Gnome or KDE? I thought Gnome was supposed to have translucent windows. My ones aren't.

I must look into Gtk and QT. Since I'm primarily a C++ programmer, may be QT is for me. Thanx.

<font color=red><i>Tomorrow I will live, the fool does say
today itself's too late; the wise lived yesterday

 

[Kelledin]

My personal preference is KDE--at the moment, KDE 2.1.1. My preferred IDE is kdevelop, which comes packaged with KDE these days. If you've ever used Visual Studio, kdevelop will look *extremely* familiar to you.

Kelledin

"/join #hackerz. See the Web. DoS interesting people."

 

[Red_Zealot]

I personally prefer Gnome. It gets a little more away from Windows than KDE. (What's the point of leaving if you come back to the same stuff?). THe one with the translucent windows is WindowMaker, I think.

"If you teach a child to read, then he or her will be able to pass a literacy test" - George W.