Getting started developing with Anjuta DevStudio

This page shows the basic steps to setup a project and start debugging in the Anjuta IDE in Linux. There are also many additional tutorials online. For more information, google: anjuta tutorial

Estimated time to complete: 10mins.

Prepare your source

Compile your code with debugging symbols as described here.

Install gdb and Anjuta

If Anjuta is not in your distribution repository it can be downloaded from here: Anjuta DevStudio IDE

Anjuta Development

The following steps assume that you have an existing autoconf-based project such as you might create using Linux Project Generator. You can also use an existing non-autoconf-based project or use Anjuta to create a new project (not covered exactly here, but the steps are very similar).

Start Anjuta

Step 1: Create a project

We have an existing C project already outside of Anjuta. We are going to create a project and use the existing source.

From top menu, select: File + New + Project From Existing Sources...

Walk through the wizard. For this example we used the sample clutter application. When finished Anjuta adds some configuration files in your project directory. Your project is now ready to edit.

Step 2: Build your project

Anjuta is automake/autoconf friendly. Since our sample application uses autogen.sh, we need to run this first to create the Makefiles.
From the top menu, select: Build + Run Autogenerate... If configure is not automatically run in your autogen.sh script you will need to manually run it too. ( Build + Run Configure...)

Enter any configure parameters you want.

Now compile the project. From the top menu, select: Build + Build Project.

If the project builds successfully we can run the generated binary. From the top menu, select: Build + Execute Program...

Step 3: Debug your project

Our project is built and ready to debug. First we need to add the "Debugger" plugin.
From the top menu, select: Edit + Preferences.
In the General category, select the "Installed plugins" tab. Check the "Debugger" checkbox. Click Close.

Start debugging. From the top menu, select: Debug + Run Target...
Anjuta usually correctly discovers the binary that should be debugged. Enter any command-line parameters your application needs. Click the "Stop at beginning" checkbox. Click OK.