Suggested Programming Computer Platform
 

Our old IBM Thinkpad running Windows XP has finally given up the ghost::ouch:: (or at least lost some of the boot-up files.) I am wondering what people are using and happy with for a FIRST Java programming environment. Is Ubuntu/Eclipse a good way to go? What about dual-boot or VMs? If we go Ubuntu or Linux, what do we lose? I am guessing there are some programming tools that only will work with a Microsoft OS.

Thanks.

Re: Suggested Programming Computer Platform
 

Doesn't it have a recovery partition??

Re: Suggested Programming Computer Platform
 

Of course it doesn't! I can try booting of a UNIX Stick drive, but I really am not into computer archeology.

Re: Suggested Programming Computer Platform
 

I thought they all did that nowadays... except for the "fleet" machines which have been bulk re-imaged (like most of mine, which are mostly "rescue PCs" on which I have dual-installed Linux).

Re: Suggested Programming Computer Platform
 

My personal setup is a MacBook Pro dual-booting OS X and Windows 7. You can run NetBeans and do Java development on OS X (and presumably Linux), but as you probably already know the Driver Station and other tools (cRIO Imaging, Camera Setup, etc.) are only supported under Windows. I would avoid a Windows VM, as many have reported network issues when trying to connect to the robot.

Re: Suggested Programming Computer Platform
 

Java development works fine in MacOS and also on Linux. I do most of my work on MacOS. We have students running old machines on Ubuntu and Mint.

The main thing you give up is the driver station. None of us have been able to run that under Wine, although I've seen folks using Parallels on a Mac.

Re: Suggested Programming Computer Platform
 

I did all my development last year in Netbeans on ArchLinux(with the Resource Hog known as Gnome Shell) with a Dual Core 2.2Ghz Pentium and the performance was great when I didn't have a million tabs open in my browser. I assume it would work equally as well on any stable OS on moderate hardware.

Re: Suggested Programming Computer Platform
 

Our programmers use their personal Windows laptops with NetBeans.

Re: Suggested Programming Computer Platform
 

I'd say Ubuntu (or, if the machine is much older Xubuntu or Lubuntu) and Netbeans.

Netbeans is much lighter, and (I'm not sure if this is the case anymore) but Netbeans is officially supported by FIRST. I've never used Eclipse, but Netbeans also has great Git/SVN integration built in.

Re: Suggested Programming Computer Platform
 

We run several newer HP laptops on Windows 7 Pro, hopefully with a server-style version controll system. This seems to work good if you have several programmers working on the same code.