ABuenger wrote:

If VS2005 has issues under Vista, do you really believe that VS2002 and VS2003 will run just fine?

Probably not, but VS6 is probably fine. They didn't really start buggering up the product line until the .NET versions and managed code. (What ever happened to C, C++ and the large base of existing code? Do they really think that everyone abandons their code every 5 years or so and starts new products written from scratch?) :~

I think it's important to separate a couple of aspects of this. First, there is your familiarity with Linux and/or UNIX alternatives. If you're a relatively new Linux user, familiar with C++ software development, but not very familiar with Linux or UNIX itself, the "best" answer may be very different than if you were. A lot of veteran Linux buffs prefer Debian-based distributions, as they are quite powerful and flexible for the power user. Ubuntu is another popular one among power users. But for developers who want to spend their time coding and debugging, rather than being a Linux power user configuring things, I recommend SuSE Linux 10.0. (10.1 is available, but I've been having trouble with ATI video support on that version). Since it's new, I'm still suggesting 10.0 for a smoother install. SuSE Linux is one of the easiest to install and use. It's graphical, including the OS installer, and the Linux config tools are rich and should be reasonably familiar to Windows folks. Second, in terms of GUI programming on Linux, and simpler Windowing development, you should definitely look at Qt. I believe it's the easiest to use, very mature and very powerful. The only drawback is that commercial applications will require a commercial license, which is well worth the money, but yet quite expensive for independent work. If you're porting a game on behalf of a publishing company (and therefore can afford to by a Qt license), then by all means, absolutely go with Qt. This will also give you Windows and OS X support too (if you by those licenses). Or *IF* you're developing an open source application (specifically GPL as I recall), Qt is available for use under the GPL for free. Finally, in terms of game writing, I don't have a lot of experience with that on Linux/UNIX boxes, but I suspect that you will want to use OpenGL for the actual game graphics, unless you're developing a simpler 2D game (like a card game). There may even be Linux windowing extensions for basic windows in OpenGL that will allow you to do the game graphics and GUI without needing Qt or something else. But you also have to be aware that the *commercial* Linux game market is virtually non-existent (and the UNIX one is a pale shadow of the Linux one), so I'm kind of assuming this is a home "side" project that you're interested in doing for fun, not profit. If you release it under the GPL, you can just use Qt for free, and I would strongly advise you to do just that in this case. In general, I don't have a favourite OS. I don'

Why 25 pages longer in the Canadian (international?) version? You see, they don't have to replace all the big words with little ones, like they need to do in the US edition. ;P