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I am looking for a collaborative real-time writing IDE that can be installed in my own server machine.

The machine is an Ubuntu 14.04 server, any dependencies that might be needed will be installed. I want a solution with a free license and open-source if possible. It is basically needed only for collaboratively writing code, executing will be handled outside the IDE.

I am working with only 1 other partner, so scalability is not that big of an issue. I want to use this software on a semi-professional project, which is however mostly done for educational reasons.

Therefore, real-time code writing is a core part of the software I am asking for, since we will be writing, examining and correcting code together, exactly in order to share each other's code writing methods and patterns and make changes on the spot, while both of us are watching the project "live".

And we want to install that said IDE on our own server,
1.because we already have a number of files from the project there
2.we don't want to use a host system given by a free account on a Web IDE, which will unsurprisingly be of limited capabilities, but instead use our own server system which has the capabilities we need and which we have customised.

The desired languages to be supported by the IDE will be C,Python,Perl and Java. However, all that we want about these languages is the syntax highlighting, and from my experience non-specific code editors have such support for most of the actually used langauges.

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  • Have you considered simply screen-sharing? Works well on a local network, and well enough over Internet if you have a fast connection for both upload and download (the person sharing needs fast upload). Some OSes such as Mac OS X have both client and server built in. Other products can be inexpensive such as RealVNC. – Basil Bourque Aug 25 '15 at 17:16
  • Seems like a half-measure to me - why use graphical sharing when we just want to edit text? Cloud9 and other solutions of the same kind are excellent for what I want - although C9 recently made using your own server possible only through paid subscription. And doesn't screen sharing have the limit of one active cursor at a time on the screen? – Noob Doob Aug 25 '15 at 17:32
  • The shared computer can be controlled (mouse, keyboard) on one end or both sides, depending on the screen-sharing product and your choice. – Basil Bourque Aug 25 '15 at 17:53
  • Well we usually work on systems without graphical environment -"The system is Ubuntu 14.04 Server"-, so that is out of the question anyway. – Noob Doob Aug 26 '15 at 11:45
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https://docs.c9.io/run_your_own_workspace.html This tutorial should be pretty helpful for a simple solution, you can "install" a Cloud9 workspace on your system. You can then proceed to use that workspace through your web browser from your account, just like any other Cloud9 workspace, but the files created, edited, deleted etc. will all be on your server, on the specified path. The system terminal you will get in the Web IDE will also be that of your server system.

Cloud9 is an online platform-IDE that lets you have acccess to a project -named "workspace"- from anywhere with an internet access, and you can add other users to those projects to work together with. The owner of the project decides the rights of the collaborators. The features of the Cloud9 IDE involve editing your code real-time together with your other partners, in the fashion of Google Docs. The basic features are available for free, but you can pay subscriptions for extended features. The "Default" option in C9 is that the system you work on is hosted by Cloud9, but the tutorial above gives you the ability to use the capabilities of C9 with your own system's resources and special features.

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