I recently tried to program PIC microcontrollers with open source
applications.  I found that they are not yet ready for prime time.
Some things I found:
1.  When using GPSIM to step through and debug C code, I never saw the
arrow pointing to the line of code about to be executed.
2.  The other open source applications only support a narrow selection
of microcontrollers and not the ones I'm currently using.

I now use MPLAB with WINE.  The combination that works for me is antiX
Linux M8.2, WINE 1.0.1-1 (available in the antiX/Debian repository),
MPLAB 8.43, and HI-TECH PICC 9.70 (comes with MPLAB 8.43).  MPLAB/PICC
with WINE is slow and clunky, but it works and works without actual
Windows.

-- 
Jason Hsu
http://www.jasonhsu.com/swrwatt.html
http://www.jasonhsu.com/swrwatt-c.txt
http://www.jasonhsu.com/swrwatt-asm.txt
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