Hello,
I installed Ubuntu a few months ago on my work laptop and I’ve been running and loving it since.
However, I am used to VsCode, so this is what I am using in Ubuntu as well.
So I am curious, what kind of coding so you do? And what is your workflow.
I am an embedded firware developper and mainly use C. I am cross compiling my code in VsCode for a FPGA from Xilinx (dual core arm + PL)
Never dove into make files and cmake more than what I needed in the past, but I had an opportunity to learn CMake and build a project from it.
So my workflow is :
- Code in VsCode
- Build in CMake
- Transfer the app through scp on the target with a custom script (target is running petalinux, which is yocto + Xilinx recipes)
- Use gdb server to debug the code.
It’s a pretty simple workflow, but I’d like to know what you guys are running so that I can maybe upgrade my workflow.
$mod+enter vim enter Ctrl+p [type a part of the name of the file I want] O [write code]
I mostly write rust now, but this workflow was finetuned over years. Use 2 terminals each on a diferent monitor, one runs neovim and the other is for building/running. If the project is a bit more complex, I will run it in a docker container( maybe mount the /etc/shadow and frieds so all artefacts are created using the same user as in the outside) . Developed a bunch of tools over the years to optimise this:
- a ‘package manager’ in bash so I have a folder for each project/context. One for work, one common, one for the server stuff like this. All are in PATH.
- parterm - remote control for the terminal so i can start a build from neovim in a different terminal.
- ‘ndock’ - at work I use a bunch of branches, this script will set up a few envs and then start a docker in a folder coresponding to that branch.
At my old job had to work on a remote vm so I setup sshfs for a while, but was slow and just moved all my tools there.
I have a pattern where i put all my projects in ~/dev/<project><branch> and all info related to a task in ~/dev/<project>/bugs/<issue_nr>. This is usefull because I can have scripts the work similar for different projects with small changes. For example to run my binary with the config for a issue i just do
ndock <branch> nr <issue nr>
This will start docker or connect to an existing one for that branch if available, compile the code, run my binary with the config present in the bug folder. In the last few month started running it with rr to be sure i can debug any random issue.
I tend to prefer Jetbrains editors (CLion, Rider, WebStorm) for projects, and just nano/micro for config editing and such…
Removed by mod
I mostly program in Rust and my main editor is VSCodium with the NeoVim extension but lately I’ve been experimenting with Alacritty + Tmux + Helix and I’m starting to like it quite a bit.
Java dev, running opensuse Tumbleweed with KDE.
IntelliJ IDEA, maven, git, postman
Kate for quick edits and note taking works very well
Konsole is my terminal of choice
Teams for Linux because I have to
docker on the command line because there’s no docker desktop for Linux. There is for windows and MacOS tho, although Linux is literally the thing where it runs on the kernel and whose concepts the whole thing is based upon. Fuck them.
Kind of sad to see still lack (for Linux in general) of apps that are often used in companies. E.g. Teams and docker desktop
Have you checked out podman desktop or rancher desktop?
I have now and I’m loving podman desktop! All I wanted was a quick and easy way to stop/start/delete running compose clusters, and podman desktop detected all my running docker compose containers and displayed them with the familiar tree-like UI with individual or global controls to play/stop or delete.
Thanks! :)
Sweet, I’m glad the recommendation is working for you!
Sweet, I’m glad the recommendation is working for you!
If any of those can be used with docker, I’m sold!
I cannot move to podman because our projects are shared and the rest of me team is on Windows or MacOs and they all use docker desktop. We also use docker compose files.
Teams for Linux sucks and is not maintained anymore. Devs recommend using the web app and this is what I’m using in Chrome, works really well. Otherwise I’m also on Tumbleweed KDE :)
There’s an unofficial cliënt that I’ve used in the past. Works well even on Wayland (where screen sharing can be an issue sometimes): https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux
If I’m not mistaken, this app is just a wrapper for the web app.
I had a lot of issues with wayland and that app.
Indeed this is the description I find on Discover:
Unofficial Microsoft Teams client for Linux using Electron. It uses the Web App and wraps it as a standalone application using Electron.
The advantage compared to teams.microsoft.com (at least when I load it in Firefox), is that it has many more features, since I guess it’s using an “Edge” user agent, which unlocks stuff that is not enabled for FF. For example, I can have 1:1 calls (yeah, I know…) and blur my background or even set a background pic, all things I can’t really do on FF.
On the other hand, screen sharing works unreliably (at least in a Wayland session, X11 is fine). I’ve reported a bug to KDE since I assumed it’s a kwin issue, but I should test it with a gnome wayland live medium as well…
Hey how are you liking Opensuse? I’ve always observed that OS from a far but never had a good opportunity to sit down and tinker with it.
I’ve been in the Debian or mint/pop os camp squarely for awhile now so the cost of time to learn it is somewhat high since all my stuff just works.
You mentioned lack of packages, I feel like I have an abundance in my ecosystem. The store on pop os has so much stuff.
Maybe this is worth looking at? https://docs.docker.com/desktop/install/linux-install/
For a personal PC I love it, never had any issues, package selection is great and bleeding edge.
You may raise your eyebrow since this is in contrast with my previous comment, but I’ve rephrased the final sentence since then (I was rather annoyed by the lack of some official apps on Linux, rather than packages for my specific distro. And that’s 100 on Microsoft/Docker).
To be honest I’m not sure TW is the best choice for a workstation because of its rolling nature, but I just recently turned my personal PC into my (also) work PC, therefore I sticked with what I already had.
An LTS kernel would probably be the safest option, but with snapshots out of the box (if you use btrfs), I still feel quite safe right now. If an update should break something crucial for my work, I’d just roll it back.
Transitioning from debian based shouldn’t be hard, zypper is quite intuitive and fast. You also get OBS which is kinda like pacman user packages.
If you need some obscure app which was packaged years ago in binary for Linux, you’ll probably have much more luck with Debian based since apparently .deb is the first package you wanna target.
But it hasn’t happened in a while now that I needed to download such obscure binaries, typically I could find a repackaged version or an alternative app all together, so…
CLion for Rust/C++, VS Code for web dev stuff
I mainly write C. I really like Intellij Clion because it uses CMake as project files. It also makes tools like valgrind, perf and gdb available without having to go to the terminal.
I’m an old school emacs guy, I prefer that for c++/python/etc and run KDE Neon because I like KDE and I’m used to ubuntu (and Kubuntu has some issues). For c++ I use CMake, google test. Not really a fan of docker etc. but I have used Kubernetes and docker in the past. Those types of containers just create new and more complicated problems than just testing on the target platform, but in some niche cases it can be useful.
I can’t stress enough how awesome emacs is, but it takes a serious investment to get efficient with it.
Hobbyist programmer. When I switched to Linux, I started using the Atom editor for typing out my JavaScript projects (mostly Electron apps). Now I use Pulsar, because Atom development was cancelled.
https://github.com/pulsar-edit/pulsar
I also find nvm to be helpful for installing and using Node in the terminal.
Transfer the app through scp […]
I use an ad-hoc while loop in a shell with
inotifywait
to wait for changes in the watched directory and thenscp
it.That’s clever. I’m not used to shell scripting yet, but I really like that it is easy to automate things in Linux. If you can run it in terminal, you can script it.
Xfce spin Fedora using VS Code with CSharp dotnet omnisharp, sometime vim with coc nvim and omnisharp vim.
PHP intelephense, podman, kvm/qemu, some el clone or rhel cloud image, and windows server 2019 vhd to qcow2.
Other than that, firefox for frontend web debug… For desktop dev, avalonia UI. Other than that, none.
I’m learning C# on my gnome Fedora and I can’t use IlSpy to decompile code on VSCode. How do you do this?
Also, my debug time takes so long, I think microshit intentionally makes it so on linux
I never use IlSpy, sorry
Have you look into their cli? https://github.com/icsharpcode/ILSpy/tree/master/ICSharpCode.ILSpyCmd
Also there is AvaloniaUI ILSpy https://github.com/icsharpcode/AvaloniaILSpy https://github.com/icsharpcode/ILSpy/discussions/2926
Also seems not all dll can be opened using ilspy https://github.com/icsharpcode/ILSpy/issues/2689
Debug times shouldn’t be long tbh hmm… How big is your project?-
Thanks for the links. I’ll look into the cli, I couldn’t configure the Avalonia no matter how much I try.
I can’t even call it a project, i’m just doing basic readline, writeline and loops stuff.
You can try to download the exe, and run it, but you need to have dotnet 6.0.2 LTS SDK in your machine… It should work as it’s.
Anyway using CLI can dump the dll, I tried it yesterday to any csharp dll, it works, and create a project for it. I think with CLI, it’s enough to see the whole .dll csharp files included.
Thanks, i’ll try out the cli.
- Code in VSCodium
- Code in Kate to keep thing fresh
- Code in Nvim because I still need to learn it
- Cry while debbuging a React app because the error messages aren’t very good
- Wish I were working with Svelte or had enough backend experience to switch to being a backend dev
- Play with terminal configs and shell scripting to distract myself from my woes
- Rinse and repeat.
Aside from the (not so much) jokes, give VSCodium a try, it’s to VSCode what Chromium is to Chrome, and works just as well.
I will look into VSCodium. I’ve heard a little about it, but I couldn’t tell you what is the difference between the two.
There is, or was, also code-oss. Can’t remember all the differences though
Microsoft develops vscode as open source, but compiles it with proprietary telemetry tooling.
VSCodium compiles from the same source code but without the telemetry
Then i will definitely switch. Are the VsCode addon compatible with VsCodium?
Copilot doesn’t work on VSCodium from my experience.
They are, but some might not be available from the extension store. Usually copying from vscode extensions folder works with no issues in my experience, but search the Codium store first just in case.
I usually hack stuff together with vim and tmux (I know, it’s redundant but Ctrl b is just a reflex at this point) when on a remote machine, but I use vscode at work and recently discovered the remote mode for Linux development… It’s pretty awesome, like not anything you can’t set up with vim or emacs, but it’s seamless remote development if you already like to use vscode
I would like to do remote dev directly on the target, but it only has64Mb qspi Flash and 512Mb of RAM, so I can’t install any modern development tools without exploding my 64Mb.
I cross compile with arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc so I at least don’t need to use the awful Xilinx IDE.
Since we’re not sure yet if we will keep our current hardware for 1.0, but not tying my project to a vendor tools, I can easily switch my custom scripts for the new hardware.
Hmm are you compiling code? Sounds like the kind of platform that shouldn’t host its own build tools. For that kind of setup I would consider building a remote dev box that can push to / debug the target platform? Maybe even control power to reset the dev board.
I cross compile then push the program through a scp and start gdb-server with a script.
The remote dev box is a good idea because I can use any computer to access it and still be able to push code. I will look into it.
Like many others I also use NeoVim, but it was quite a bit of learning curve before you get comfortable with it. And you really have to go all in and learn at least the basics, if you try to use it like a normal text editor thinking you’ll learn commands as you go along then you’re going to hate it.
In addition to having to learn how to use vim, you also need a good configuration and probably some plugins if you want to use it as an IDE. Personally I use fzf, coc, vim-dirvish, lightline, lightline-bufferline and papercolor-theme.
How long did it take you to get comfortable with NeoVim? I like the proposition of the vi/vim approach of no mouse. But it is really intimidating to get into.
I guess a few hours until I had memorised basic stuff like moving around, copy-paste, etc. Then maybe a week or two before I really felt comfortable with it. There’s some point where you actually understand vim and start using it more like a programming language and less like a traditional text editor. For example I love the “repeat last command” (default bound to . key), but to use it effectively you need to create a command that will be usable everywhere you want it to, and there are many different commands that do the same thing.
Here’s a random example:
Let’s say you have the following text in a document you’re editing with vim, and you want to delete the word “dance”. Vim is currently in normal mode, and with the cursor placed on the highlighted “c”:
Monkey dance party
If your brain is still in Notepad.exe mode, you might achieve this by pressing “i” to go into insert mode and using a combination of backspace and delete to edit the line.
A vim beginner might know that “x” and “X” in normal mode works like delete and backspace, without going to insert mode, so “XXXxx” does the same.
Someone who has learned basic movement could instead solve this by combining two commands, first “b” to move the cursor back to the beginning of the word, followed by “dw” (delete to next word).
But there’s also a single command that deletes the current word, regardless of where the cursor is in it, which is “daw”. And since this is a single command, you can repeat it with the “.” key to delete a different word.
Now here comes the vim magic: If you instead want to replace the word “dance” with “pool” you just modify the above commands by replacing “d” (delete) with “c” (change). So in our example you could type “caw” in normal mode, which deletes the word under the cursor and places you in insert mode. There you write “pool” and press Escape to go back to normal mode. Now you have a single command that replaces any word under the cursor with the word pool, which you can repeat anywhere you like.
And if it’s not just the current word you want to change, then replace the “w” in the command with something else, for example “ca)” will change a pair of parenthesis and everything inside them, which is very useful when programming C/C++/etc… And if you have nested parentheses and want do something with two levels at the same time, the command becomes “c2a)” which might look complicated, but it’s basically just simple rules that you string together.
https://vim-adventures.com/ might be a fun way to get started, then look up some nice vim cheat sheet and keep that nearby. I would also recommend looking up some example vim configs, because the editor is very bare bones with the defaults. I like relative line numbers for easy jumping between lines, so give that a try.
When you’ve mastered (?) vim you’ll also see less (the program) keyboard shortcuts make a lot more sense. You can also change your shell to vi mode for faster editing of commands.