Compiling A C Program from the Linux command line by OnWorks

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Compiling A C Program

Let’s compile something. Before we do that however, we’re going to need some tools like the compiler, the linker, and make. The C compiler used almost universally in the Linux environment is called gcc (GNU C Compiler), originally written by Richard Stallman. Most distributions do not install gcc by default. We can check to see if the compiler is present like this:

[me@linuxbox ~]$ which gcc

/usr/bin/gcc

[me@linuxbox ~]$ which gcc

/usr/bin/gcc

The results in this example indicate that the compiler is installed.

Tip: Your distribution may have a meta-package (a collection of packages) for soft- ware development. If so, consider installing it if you intend to compile programs on your system. If your system does not provide a meta-package, try installing the gcc and make packages. On many distributions, this is sufficient to carry out the exercise below.