Development Tools Installation In Linux

In this article, we are going to see the installation process of development tools in popular Linux distributions such as Arch Linux, CentOS, RHEL, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, and openSUSE, etc. These development tools contain all necessary applications, for example, GNU GCC C/C++ compilers, make, debuggers, man pages and others which are required to compile and build new software and packages.

Install Development Tools In Linux

You can install the developer tools either individually, one by one, or all at once. Here, we are going to install all of them at once, which will make things much easier.

1. Arch Linux and derivatives

To install development tools in Arch Linux and its derivatives like Antergos, Manjaro Linux, you just have to run the following commands:

$ sudo pacman -Syyu

$ sudo pacman -S base-devel

The above commands will install the following package(s) in your Arch-based systems.

1. autoconf
2. automake
3. binutils
4. bison
5. fakeroot
6. file
7. findutils
8. flex
9. gawk
10. gcc
11. gettext
12. grep
13. groff
14. gzip
15. libtool
16. m4
17. make
18. pacman
19. patch
20. pkg-config
21. sed
22. sudo
23. texinfo
24. util-linux
25. which

To install all tools just press ENTER.

However, If you want to install to a specific package group, simply type its number and press ENTER to continue the installation.

2. RHEL, CentOS, Scientific Linux, Fedora

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

$ yum update

$ yum groupinstall "Development Tools"

The above command will install the following necessary developer tools:

1. autoconf
2. automake
3. bison
4. byacc
5. cscope
6. ctags
7. diffstat
8. doxygen
9. elfutils
10. flex
11. gcc/gcc-c++/gcc-gfortran
12. git
13. indent
14. intltool
15. libtool
16. patch
17. patchutils
18. rcs
19. subversion
20. swig

3. Debian, Ubuntu, and derivatives

To install required developer tools in DEB based systems, you have to run the following commands:

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential

This command will install all necessary packages to set up the development environment in Debian, Ubuntu, and its derivatives.

1. binutils
2. cpp
3. gcc-5-locales
4. g++-multilib
5. g++-5-multilib
6. gcc-5-doc
7. gcc-multilib
8. autoconf
9. automake
10. libtool
11. flex
12. bison
13. gdb
14. gcc-doc
15. gcc-5-multilib
16. and many.

Finally, you have all the necessary development tools, to begin developing software in your Linux box.

However, If you don’t like this method to install the development tools, there is also a script named “mangi script” available to easily setup development environments in DEB based systems like Ubuntu, Linux Mint and other Ubuntu derivatives. In addition, refer to the following article.

Script To Setup Development Environment In Ubuntu

4. Install Development Tools In openSUSE/SUSE

To set up a development environment in openSUSE and SUSE enterprise, you have to run the following commands as root user:

$ zypper refresh

$ zypper update

$ zypper install -t pattern devel_C_C++

Verifying Installation

At last, let’s verify that the development tools have been installed or not. For this, you have to run the following commands:

$ gcc -v

$ make -v

As an example, you should get the output as shown in the above image once done with the installation.

So now you have all the necessary tools, to begin software development on your Linux system.