Compiling and running C, C ++ programs on Linux

Morozov Dmitry 13th October 2020

This quick guide explains how to compile and run C / C ++ programs on the GNU / Linux operating system.

If you are a student or new Linux user who is moving from the Microsoft platform, then you may be wondering how to run C or C ++ programs on a Linux distribution. We need to understand that compiling and running code on Linux platforms is slightly different from Windows.

Installing the necessary tools

As you probably already understand, in order to run the code, you need to install the necessary tools and compilers to work. Below we describe how to install all development tools on Linux.

For work and testing, we must have a server running Linux. The best option is a VPS. Depending on the geography of the project, two countries are usually chosen for servers – VPS USA and VPS Russia.

In this quick tutorial, we will discuss how to install development tools on Linux distributions such as Arch Linux, CentOS, RHEL, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, openSUSE, and more.

These development tools include all the necessary applications such as the GNU GCC C / C ++ compilers, make, debuggers, man pages, and others that are needed to compile and build new software and packages.

The developer tools can be installed individually or all at once. We’re going to install everything at once to make it much easier for us to work with.

Installation on Arch Linux

To install development tools on Arch Linux and its distributions such as Antergos, Manjaro Linux, simply run:

$ sudo pacman -Syyu

$ sudo pacman -S base-devel

The above command will install the following packages on your Arch based systems:

autoconf
automake
binutils
bison
fakeroot
file
findutils
flex
gawk
gcc
gettext
grep
groff
gzip
libtool
m4
make
pacman
patch
pkg-config
sed
sudo
texinfo
util-linux
which

Just hit ENTER to install them all.

If you want to install a package to a specific group of packages, just enter its number and press ENTER to proceed with the installation.

Installing development tools on RHEL, CentOS

To install development tools on Fedora, RHEL and its clones such as CentOS, Scientific Linux, run the following commands as user root:

$ yum update

$ yum groupinstall "Development Tools"

The above command will install all the required developer tools, for example:

autoconf
automake
bison
byacc
cscope
ctags
diffstat
doxygen
elfutils
flex
gcc / gcc-c ++ / gcc-gfortran
git
indent
intltool
libtool
patch
patchutils
rcs
subversion
swig

Installing development tools on Debian, Ubuntu and distributions

To install the required developer tools on DEB based systems, run:

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential

This command will provide all the necessary packages to set up a development environment on Debian, Ubuntu and its distributions.

binutils
cpp
gcc-5-locales
g ++ – multilib
g ++ – 5-multilib
gcc-5-doc
gcc-multilib
autoconf
automake
libtool
flex
bison
gdb
gcc-doc
gcc-5-multilib
and many.

You now have the development tools you need to create software on Linux.

Mangi script

If you don’t like the method of installing development kits above, there is also a script called “manga script” (mangi) available to easily set up the development environment on DEB systems such as Ubuntu, Linux Mint and other Ubuntu derivatives.

After a fresh install of Ubuntu, grab this script from the GitHub repository, make it executable, and start installing all the necessary tools and packages to set up a complete development environment. You don’t need to install the tools one by one.

This script will install the following development environments and tools on your Linux system:

Node.js
NVM
NPM
Nodemon
MongoDB
Forever
git
grunt
bower
vim
Maven
Loopback
curl
python
jre / jdk
gimp
zip unzip and rar tools
filezilla
tlp
erlang
xpad sticky notes
cpu checker
kvm acceleration
Caliber Ebook Reader (I often use it to read programming books
Dict – Ubuntu Dictionary Database and Client (CLI based)

Install the following first:

$ sudo apt-get install wget unzip

Download the manga script using the command:

$ wget https://github.com/sojharo/mangi-script/archive/master.zip

Extract the downloaded archive:

$ unzip master.zip

The above command will unpack the zip file into a folder called mangi-script-master in your current working directory. Change to the directory and make the script executable using the following commands:

$ cd mangi-script-master/

$ chmod a+x my_ubuntu_setup.sh

Finally, run the script with the command:

$ sudo ./my_ubuntu_setup.sh

Please keep in mind that this script is not fully automated. You need to answer a series of Yes / No questions to install all development tools.

Installing development tools on openSUSE / SUSE

To set up your development environment in openSUSE and SUSE enterprise, run the following commands as root user:

$ zypper refresh

$ zypper update

$ zypper install -t pattern devel_C_C++

Checking the installation

Now let’s check if the development tools were installed or not. To do this, run:

$ gcc -v

$ make -v

As you can see from the above output, the development tools were installed successfully. Now you can start developing your applications.

Setting up the development environment

A script called ‘mangi’ will help you set up a complete environment on Ubuntu based systems.

Once again, after installing the necessary development tools, you can check them using one of the following commands:

$ whereis gcc

$ which gcc

$ gcc -v

These commands will show the installation path and compiler version gcc…

Compiling and running C, C ++ programs

First, let’s see how to compile and run a simple C program.

Compiling and running C programs

Write your code / program in your favorite CLI / GUI editor.

I am going to write my C program using an editor nano…

$ nano ostechnix.c

Note… You need to use the .c extension for C programs or .cpp for C ++ programs.

Copy / paste the following code:

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
   printf("Welcome To OSTechNix!");
   return 0;
}

Press Ctrl + O and Ctrl + X to save and exit the file.

To compile the program, run:

$ gcc ostechnix.c -o ostechnix

Or:

$ cc ostechnix.c -o ostechnix

If there are syntax or semantic errors in your code / program, they will be displayed. First you need to fix them in order to move on. If there is no error, then the compiler will successfully generate an executable file ostechnix in the current working directory.

Finally, run the program with the command:

$ ./ostechnix

You will see output as shown below:

Welcome To OSTechNix!

To compile multiple source files (for example source1 and source2) into an executable file, run:

$ gcc source1.c source2.c -o executable

To resolve warnings, you need to debug the output symbols:

$ gcc source.c -Wall -Og -o executable

Compile the source code into an assembler instruction:

$ gcc -S source.c

Compile source code without linking:

$ gcc -c source.c

The above command will create an executable called source.o…

If your program contains math functions:

$ gcc source.c -o executable -lm

For more information, see the man pages (man pages).

$ man gcc

Compiling and Running C ++ Programs

Write your C ++ program in any editor of your choice and save it with the .cpp extension.

An example of a simple C ++ program:

$ cat ostechnix.cpp

Program:

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
  std::cout << "Welcome To OSTechNix!" << std::endl;
  return 0;
}

To compile this C ++ program on Linux, just run:

$ g++ ostechnix.cpp -o ostechnix

If there were no errors, then you can run this C ++ program under Linux using the command:

$ ./ostechnix

Will output:

Welcome To OSTechNix!

Alternatively, we can compile the above C ++ program using the command “make“as shown below.

$ make ostechnix

You noticed? I have not used the .cpp extension in the above command to compile the program. There is no need to use the extension to compile C ++ programs using the make command.

Run using the command:

$ ./ostechnix
Welcome To OSTechNix!

See the man pages for more details.

$ man g++

Hope the article helped.

Compiling, linux, programs, running