i plan on teaching myself c++ but i need a good c++ compiler. i'm looking for one that's like bloodshed's dev-c++. are there any compilers out there that are fairly easy to use?

You mean you want an IDE? Dev-C++ is an IDE (it uses the gcc compilers). I'm not very familiar with C++ IDEs in Linux, but I've heard of Eclipse (?). Maybe other people can suggest more.

I've found Anjuta to be acceptable... not quite as good, in my opinion, as Dev-C++, but it generally gets the job done. As spooon mentioned, though, these are IDE's; I haven't gotten the point in C++ programming myself that I really need anything other than a text editor and gcc's "g++" compiler (not to say that to expect a good GUI app is unreasonable, of course).

I Agree also kdevelop and qt3 are great tools also.

alright. thanks, i'll give them a try.

Eclipse is a Java IDE (firstly) however it does plugins. I'd be interested in hearing from people in regards to this IDE as a C/C++ IDE for Linux.

I've tried Anjuta, and though I found it promising, I didn't think it delivered in regards to stability.

I've just recently switched to Eclipse (I have also tried Anjuta, which is nice but lacks that final touch). I have also tried kdevelop of course, but I never became friends with it. I most often find myself programming with nedit and a console . I should also say that I use windows from time to time and then I use MS visual c++ 7, so that's the kind of user interface I'm used to. Using Eclipse speeds everything up very much. I like the auto-compile functions and its makefile generation. And the user interface suits me very well, everything is where I want it to be, it's got a builtin debugger GUI (otherwise debugging is the worst bit when using gdb in a console). I haven't used eclipse for that long but I'm positively surprised, I first assumed that it was just another bloated java IDE but that is completely wrong. Of course it require fair amounts of system resources (running FC4+Eclipse+Firefox just barely works on my 512 MB laptop). But it's fast and it pays off for it's resource usage with the efficiency. Coding in eclipse is FAST, and it's well integrated with gcc/gnu make. And its damn easy to learn (I haven't learned how to use autocomplete yet though, but I don't use those things often anyway). I would recommend anyone (especially tosethat have done Windows programming) who haven't found their favorite yet to try Eclipse...
Oh, and it's got that useful "Debug"/"Release" target selector that MSVC++ has. I've missed that!

I would definitely recommend a beginner in C++ to use Eclipse, as it has good template projects, and shows errors in the source as you write your program. And beginners (as well as advanced programmers) always appreciate a graphical debugger!

Well, all this talk about Eclipse convinced me to finally download it (and the C++ extension). It looks very Java-centered, but after an initial glance it seems like it doesn't take much at all to make it a great C++ IDE. Also, it's absurdly easy to install (just download and run) and modify (menu-based). I've been using Linux for years and I'm still impressed when my new programs "just run." My only complaint is that it feels a bit "bulky," like rpz mentions, but this is probably because it's simply a big program with a broad purpose. (That, and the fact that I'm also used to nedit and the console )

Just the same, my initial response is that this beats Anjuta pretty thoroughly, so I'll also recommend it.