Originally Posted by misplaced
as much as i hate to say it, i would recommend windows vc++ for the shear fact that you can get very quickly look things up via vc++'s help.
another thing i hate to say is that *most* (give or take) useful programs are OS dependant in my opinion. you can write console programs for both OS's, but you must adhere to the standard. as far as learning c/c++ goes however, there's only slight differences between OS's. the more low-level or specific you get, the more platform depedant you get. but for learning the language, it's syntax, and it's basic functions, whichever OS (or both) you feel more comfortable with is probably the right one. don't get me wrong, you can write portable, usefull programs but in my opinion, most of them aren't 100% portable.
i'm a little drunk, so if the above doesn't make much since, let my point be:
You'll know when to be concerned about which OS you're coding for when you get there.