ESP32 Forum

It's a simple question - but the answer seems complex.

Which is the best* toolchain to work with the ESP-IDF?

I'm fairly new to ESP; used to mainly code for STM32 using eclipse. So please consider this beginner questions.
So far I'm running with eclipse in a debian VM - follwing the tutorial https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp ... setup.html

Recently I got the problem that I'm not able to compile on this system reliably; a mysterious "can't find make"-error is haunting me (not always but often).

I'm somewhat in love with sublime text as a text editor but didn't try to code with it so far. I can't figure out how indexing works and if I will be able to jump to definitions.
I've read about people used to run VSC and are now using cmake, not wanting to go back. To be honest - I'm a bit confused to what exactly cmake is and how to use it.

Is there an editor/toolchain combination that let's me easily jump to the outside code like "driver/spi_slave.h" or go to the defintion of functions like tcpip_adapter_init() in order to improve my understandings of the inner workings?

What are you using / what would you recommend?
Do you code for IDF and MDF using the same tools?

I favor CLion for the IDE. It's easy to setup and works fine with IDF. I've also used VSCode and it works, but I find it a bit messy setting up.

Is there an editor/toolchain combination that let's me easily jump to the outside code like "driver/spi_slave.h" or go to the defintion of functions like tcpip_adapter_init() in order to improve my understandings of the inner workings?

Any modern IDE/code editor does that (assuming they are properly configured). Both CLion and VSCode do it. They both integrate well with CMake (which is a build system generation tool - not an an build system).

I've only worked with IDF, not MDF.

I've installed VSC now and I'm pleasently suprised of its look and feel.

I followed this nice guide:
https://github.com/Deous/VSC-Guide-for-esp32

I have one "problem" though: It's compiling veeeerrryyyy slooowwwwly. Compared to just a regular msys32 session.
Any idea why?