Let’s say you need to compile your C++ project under MS Windows and you need to use the Microsoft’s toolchain instead of MinGW. Buying the whole Visual Studio is not necessary. I like a simple combination gvim+scons+gcc which gives me a high amount of flexibility. I just needed to switch the gcc to the MS compiler.
MSP430, GCC, mspdebug
This article describes brief steps to setup a Linux development tools for MSP430 MCU – compiler and programmer. MSP430 is not as well linux-supported as AVR or 8051 but fortunately there are ways to make it working.