Tutorials > Linux > Using Visual Studio to develop Linux apps

Using Visual Studio to develop Linux apps

This tutorial demonstrates how to build and debug Linux applications using Visual Studio.

To proceed with the tutorial you will need a Windows machine and a Linux machine. You can use 2 physical computers, a Windows computer running Linux inside VirtualBox/VMWare or vice versa.

To create, build and debug a simple Linux app using VisualGDB, please follow these steps:

  1. Please download and install the latest VisualGDB.
  2. On your Windows machine start Visual Studio, select “File->New project”. Then select the “VisualGDB Linux Project Wizard”:
  3. . Specify project location and press “OK”:
  4. The VisualGDB Linux Project Wizard will start. VisualGDB supports 4 different build subsystems when creating Linux projects. For users familiar with classic Visual Studio projects we recommend using MSBuild that will provide the most native look-and-feel. The VisualGDB MSBuild backend is heavily optimized and will only take moments to retransfer files to the Linux machine and build them. It will also handle all dependency resolution on the Linux machine itself, minimizing delays even for slow connections. If you are planning to build your project from the Linux machine directly where no Visual Studio is available, follow this tutorial instead to create a CMake-based project. If your project uses Qt, you can select “Use Qt” to use QMake. Finally, if you want to use the simple GNU Make, VisualGDB supports it as well (it will let you edit the Makefile via the VisualGDB GUI and will configure IntelliSense automatically). In this tutorial we will use the MSBuild subsystem recommended for most new projects:
  5. If you have not created any projects before, select “Create a new SSH connection” on the next page:
  6. Provide the host name, user name and password. It is recommended to check the “setup public key” checkbox, so that VisualGDB will automatically generate an public/private keypair, store it in your Windows account’s key container and setup the remote Linux machine to use it. If you don’t enable public key authentication, VisualGDB will remember your password for this connection. The stored passwords are encrypted using a key stored in your Windows account. Thus, the password will only be available once you login using your Windows account:
  7. If you want to use a different toolchain (e.g. LLVM), you can select if from the toolchain list. The button to the right of the toolchain list allows customizing individual tools, such as the compiler:You can also select a cross-compiler here or specify a different deployment machine. Use the diagram at the bottom of the page to check the correctness of your setup:
    •  The hammer icon corresponds to the machine where the compiler is run.
    • The “play” icon corresponds to the machine where the debugged program is launched.
  8. When you press “Next”, VisualGDB will test your toolchain by trying to compile and run a trivial program. If any errors are detected at this stage, you will see a detailed error log with further troubleshooting information.
  9. As the same source code will be edited under Windows and then compiled under Linux, VisualGDB will need to keep the sources synchronized. The easiest way is to use automatic file uploading via SSH. Alternatively, VisualGDB can setup shared folders (that would require root password).If you are using CMake, you can also configure VisualGDB to access the sources on the Linux machine directly over SSH as if they were located on Windows. Follow this tutorial for a detailed example.
  10. Press Finish to complete the wizard. If you are setting up your first project using this Linux machine, VisualGDB will make local caches of the include directories to make them available through IntelliSense.