Data point: About a year and a half ago I tried cross-compiling on cygwin. I found the performance 10-20x slower than native Linux on the same hardware. This approach will *cost* you money in lost person-hours.
For what it's worth, I'm also at a company which is a Windows shop. One Linux PC and several custom boards running Linux are the sole exceptions. We took an old PC we had laying around (zero hardware cost) and put Red Hat on it. $50 for the CD and very easy install. Also at home, I've installed Mandrake over the Internet; very easy to install, and low cost, and high quality. Sounds too good to be true but it's not. Over the last few years I've tried installing several different distibutions at home, for the sake of comparison. I don't want to start a flame war about comparing distros (& if I just *did* start one, I won't participate) but all of them will give you command-line stuff -- where distros vary is in how well they auto-detect your video card & set up X for you, or whether you have to manually diddle with X config files (not my idea of fun). Personally, I've found Mandrake and Red Hat both very easy to install & fall into the category of getting X config right for you (I won't name distros in the other category), & this is probably what you want if you're new to Linux. Also Mandrake has a nice graphical partition editor; Red Hat 8 probably does too. That's part of the install that's manual (fdisk) in other distros. The PC doesn't have to be a hot rod. I use a 300 MHz IBM 300PL and have no performance complaints. Also the only time I reboot it is when the power goes off. Sometimes I work sitting at the Linux PC; just as often, I telnet or SSH in (Windows telnet, putty.exe which is superior) to the Linux box. I am a command-line guy & that's fine for me. If you want X, sit at the Linux PC, or use XVision or Hummingbird. I've used both at past jobs (as well as PC-Xware; don't now if they're still in business) & I thought both were OK. Samba would be great for data sharing. Personally I've never bothered to set it up, & just use periodic SCP's (part of SSH package, available from the same place putty.exe is). My boss sees me being productive on commodity hardware with no license fees & *he* tells *me* about the benefits of using Linux vs. Windows. Can't beat that ... -----Original Message----- From: Jerry Van Baren [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 2:08 PM To: linuxppc-embedded at lists.linuxppc.org Subject: Re: Need IDE for embedded Linux project My pick: #4 Don't cross compile under Windows, you are setting yourself up for immense frustration and zero help. On the email lists and newsgroups, I've heard people ask several times whether it is possible to cross compile the linux kernel under CygWin and a few said they actually were going to do it -- but I have not heard any success stories. As craig at hollabaugh.com said, use Samba -- your developers, who are familiar with Windows and Windows based editors, will be a lot less resistant to the move. Check out VNC http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/ -- it is an open software "PCanywhere" type program that works very well under linux and quite well under Windows. Exceed (X windows on Microsoft Windows) is a nice program but pretty expensive. The scheme is to have the files reside on the linux box. Each developer can use the tools of his choice to edit the files (Windows via Samba or native linux). Each developer would have a VNC connection or a simple telnet session (warning: Windows telnet really sucks) to do his builds using make. gvb At 12:10 PM 1/21/2003 -0500, brian.auld at adic.com wrote: >Hello all, [snip] >As a first step I am trying to determine what IDE makes sense given our >Department's infrastructure ... which is all windows (barf). I am aware of >the following options: > >Option 1: All Native Linux. >Option 2: Native windows cross development environment. >Option 3: Vmware (linux guest on windows) with a Linux based IDE. >Option 4: Linux development server <--> PC-X server software > (hummingbird) on windows development hosts. [snip] >Thanks, > >Brian Auld >Firmware Engineer > >Brian Auld >Embedded Software Engineer >ADIC >10 Brown Rd. Ithaca, NY 14850 >(607) 241-4845 > > ** Sent via the linuxppc-embedded mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/
