C++ developers need some help!

The Linux VM will do everything you need it to do. Windows on a VM will do the same, or if you do it bootcamp it will just be native via bootable option. You can dedicate as much space as you want, I only gave it 20GB.

 

It depends on what flavor of C++ development you will be doing, but if you install XCode you will have the GCC and LLVM tools right in OSX. I believe XCode supports code completion with C++ as well.

 

I also study CS and switched to mac. I had to boot a Linux VM 2-3 times for some small stuff, lets say a certain tool for AI testing or whatever. Everything else i could find or compile for mac. Obviously it depends what stuff you do, but for the most part you should be fine.

Checkout the most common OSX package managers, maybe you even find the software you need:
http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/
and
http://www.macports.org/

 

Did CS as well. Our lab machines were all SunOS clients (I swear it really wasn't even that long ago). You should be able to use whatever your class recommends, like Emacs.

Xcode is free and pretty good.

You can probably find a port or compile virtually anything else Eclipse, Textedit, Vim...