Where is My Linux GNU C or GCC Compilers Are Installed?

Where is my GNU C compiler? Where does the GNU C (gcc) compiler reside in the RHEL / Fedora / Debian / Ubuntu / CentOS Linux installation? How do I install GNU c/c++ compiler in Linux operating systems?

The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is a compiler system. It was created by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages such as C (gcc), C++ (g++), Objective-C, Objective-C++, Fortran (gfortran), Java (gcj), Ada (GNAT), and Go (gccgo).

You need to use the which command to locate c compiler binary called gcc. Usually, it is installed in /usr/bin directory.

Syntax

Open a terminal and then type the following command to see Linux C Compiler location:
$ which gcc
Sample outputs:

/usr/bin/gcc

Display gcc version:

Type the following command
$ gcc -v
Sample outputs:

 Reading specs from /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/3.4.6/specs
Configured with: ../configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info --enable-shared --enable-threads=posix --disable-checking --with-system-zlib --enable-__cxa_atexit --disable-libunwind-exceptions --enable-java-awt=gtk --host=x86_64-redhat-linux
Thread model: posix
gcc version 3.4.6 20060404 (Red Hat 3.4.6-3)

Installing GNU compiler collection

You need to use the up2date or yum or apt-get command to install gcc and required libs.

Note: You must login as root using su - or sudo -s command and then use command as per your distro.

If you are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 4.0 or older, type the command:

# up2date gcc

If you are using CentOS/Fedora Linux or RHEL version 5.0 or above, type the command:

# yum install gcc

If you are using Debian /Ubuntu Linux, type the command:

$ sudo apt-get install gcc
OR # apt-get install gcc