I’m a C# and Java serverside windows programmer by day and want to learn C++ on Unix in my spare time.
I have very limited knowledge of C++ (from my university days).
I currently own a dell laptop running Vista. Should I create a dual boot system or buy a new machine?
Which Unix OS should I go for?
Which IDE should I use? …. NetBeans looks ok?
Which books should I read? I’m interested in texts covering the fundamentals, libraries, network programming, distributed systems.
Thanks
Books advice:
IDE: my favorite choice would be Eclipse, which has a c++ plugin (and many more interesting plugins), but I would also advice you to learn to use at least one among the Sacred Monsters: VI/VIM and Emacs.
OS: I would go for a dual boot system with some linux distro, maybe Ubuntu.
I think you could go for Dual boot as klez pointed out.
I have a HP2000z dual boot with XP and Ubuntu, and i really like Ubuntu a lot!
For C++, you could give Code::Blocks a try. Its open source.
Adding to orsogufo, I also suggest Unix Network programming Vol I and Vol II by Richard Stevens for Network related topics.
Dual boot is OK.
As of wich UNIX to choose I'll go for linux, in particular Debian or Fedora.
As IDE you could choose between Netbeans, Eclipse or, if you're going to use KDE as desktop enviroment, go for KDevelop.
Books, there's plenty of free books available. Just google it. I would advice C++ for Dummies (no offence intended ;-) )
Go for a dual boot, or if you have a good enough PC, try using a virtual machine (virtualbox is a decent one). If your new to *nix, Ubuntu is great, or if you dont mind getting your hands dirty try Gentoo.
As for an IDE, so far I have been happy using Vim and the command line in *nix.
In my opinion you should start with a virtual machine (Virtual Box is free and works well). It's not that installing Unix/Linux is extremely complicated, but you'll probably have to resize one or more partitions, which is quite scary the first time.
Installing in a VM is easy, and you won't have to worry about breaking something. If you realize you don't like Unix, you just drop the VM.
As of which Unixoid to install, I'd say grab a widely known Linux distribution so you can get help easily. If you know someone who is proficient with Unix and can help you, install the same distro as him.
Otherwise, you can probably install any widely used distro. I just want to warn you that many people find Ubuntu unstable after the first upgrade. ;-)
About Unix and IDEs, this answer sums it up well: C++ IDE for Linux?.
