learning c++ on linux mint ( for .net developer ) - c++

Question

My goal is to hop on to C++ programming language by doing a homework project on linux mint and learn some linux & c++ at the same time.
I intend to write a small desktop application to show current network traffic ( like DU meter in windows). I have following questions:
I noticed in mint there is an application called 'System Monitor' which also shows network history with info and graph like current download/upload of data and speed. Is it a good idea to get started by looking at the code for this ? how can I find the code for same in mint and dig into it ? pls help with some steps here if possible.
what tools do I need here for writing c++ application for/in linux mint ?
Which GUI library to use ( like in c# winforms , it offers user controls as part of GDI lib) on linux mint what do we have that offers user controls like window/button/panel/etc ?
Links to beginner level tutorials will be helpful.
Hoping NOT to re-invent the wheel completely here. Would love to re-use some lib that do the network traffic part, ideas ?
PS: i know this post reads 'wanna be' - I am really excited to kickstart with some c++. Will rephrase this post with more precise questions.Hunting in the dark at this point being a c# developer totally spoiled by windows.
Thanks in Advance!!! for tips on this...

Answer 1

The mint distribution is based on Ubuntu/Debian, so I assume that my Ubuntu approach also works on mint.
First
you need some tools, libraries and headers:
# install the standard toolchain (g++, make, etc.)
sudo aptitude install build-essential
# install the build dependencies for a desktop based networking tool
sudo aptitude build-dep gnome-nettool
Optionally
because you mentioned the system-monitor - it might be helpful to build the gnome-system-monitor from source:
# install the build dependencies for gnome-system-monitor
sudo aptitude build-dep gnome-system-monitor
# get the sources for the gnome-system-monitor
mkdir example
cd example
apt-get source gnome-system-monitor
# build the gnome-system-monitor
# note: you might have a different version. But I'm sure you get the idea ;-)
cd gnome-system-monitor-2.28.0
sh configure
make
Finally
you need something to develop and debug. A lot of unix developers recommend emacs or vi(m). But my personal opinion is that you should start with a "modern" GUI based IDE.
here's a collection of some commonly used IDEs:
Eclipse with CDT
NetBeans
Code::Blocks
Anjuta (was this used to develop the gnome-system-monitor ?)
CodeLite (which is my personal favorite)
see also: discussion on SOF regarding "the best" C++ IDE for Linux

Answer 2

People usually use text editors like (g)Vim or emacs to write C++ applications. If you've never seen them before they may be a bit overwhelming. You can also use IDEs like Geany, Anjuta, QtCreator, Eclipse...
I think the default desktop environment in Mint is GNOME which uses the GTK library. You could use GTK for your application. It is written in C but there is a c++ interface for it, gtkmm, and a tutorial for it on the projects site.
There is also Qt, which is the base of the K Desktop Environment or KDE. It is a very large library and has a pretty good IDE written in it, for it, QtCreator.
Finally, you should search stackoverflow because most of your questions have already been answered.

Answer 3

In answer to you "what tools do I need", you should at a minimum install g++, the standard C++ compiler on a GNU/Linux system.
Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu (which is in turn based on Debian), so for a binary like gnome-system-monitor, the command
apt-get source $(dpkg -S $(which gnome-system-monitor) | cut -d: -f1)
will download and unpack the source package for it in the current directory. Note that it probably depends on a number of libraries, that can be found in different packages. You can see what these are with apt-cache show package_name, and libraries often have associated development packages named with -dev that contain the associated headers and statically-linked archives. You can find the dev package names by searching using apt-cache search foo, where foo is the base name of the library package you're interested in.