The basic tools and steps of compiling are largely unaffected by X. Compiling under emacs is still recommended, though emacs itself gains some Fix this xref: helpful features when executed under X.

Particularly worth noting --- the emacs menu bar, when running under X, adds C++-specific menus for editing and compiling source code.

The gdb and jdb modes for controlling the debugger also acquire debugging-specific menus when emacs is run under X. Certainly, the emacs interface to the gdb and jdb debuggers remains a viable option when working under X.

However, gdb has a windowing interface of its own. On some systems, the windowing interface will come up whenever you run gdb with an X $DISPLAY value set (see Figure 19: Running gdb under X). On others, the X interface to gdb is invoked via the command insight programName & This is probably the easiest way to run gdb.

Another option for an interface to gdb when running under X, is ddd, the “Data Display Debugger” . ddd offers a really nice display of data items with graphic depiction of pointer relationships (see Figure 20: ddd, Showing Source Code and Data with Pointers). You may, however, find it too sluggish on all but the fastest network connections.

To get started using ddd, try working through the “Sample DDD Session” in the DDD manual.

Cygwin users: Although there is continued interest in getting ddd to work under CygWin, the versions I've tried have not been particularly stable. However, the CygWin port of gdb includes the insight window interface.