Quote Originally Posted by silentcoder
Hi!

Background: Started with vb6, then vb.net,c#, asp.net. Long enough to become more and more tempted to switch to Open Source.
Switched to Php,mySQL and whatever goes with it to do webdevelopment.
However I kept developing on Windows, though I made several attempts to switch to Linux (Ubuntu), but every time jumped back due to hectic work schedules.

I got some more free time on my hands the next few months and want to learn C, then C++ then Java. (No advice on how difficult it is required. I want, thats enough)

Should I firstly switch to Linux and learn to use it, or stick to windows? Reason is that some work stuff just run on Windows and I get tired rebooting between OS's.

Do NOT want to use c++.net or any microsoft developement technology.
Then you will be interested in GCC.
http://gcc.gnu.org/

If you stick with windows, I would honestly use Visual C++. However if you have an anti-Microsoft thing going on, you can always download one of the emulations for Linux and use gcc.

http://gcc.gnu.org/install/specific.html#windows