Cant find stdio.h header file

[KabirGandhiok]

Hello,
I'm learning C on my Mint 17.2 Cinnamon 64 bit, but for some reason gcc cannot find the stdio.h header file.
This is the error I get -

kabir@kabir-G50-80 ~/Programming/C $ gcc helloworld.c -o hello
helloworld.c:1:19: fatal error: stdio.h: No such file or directory
#include <stdio.h>
^
compilation terminated.

And here is the program I want to compile -

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main()
{
printf("Hello world!\n");
return(0);
}


I can't see where I've gone wrong. Any help regarding this would be very helpful.
Thanks!

PS: I was under the impression that all these header files came preinstalled in mint as I didn't face this problem when I was learning C on ubuntu. I checked /usr/include and couldn't find stdio.h unless it is located in some other folder or sub folder.

[xenopeek]

Did you install build-essential?

[KabirGandhiok]

Do I have to install build-essentials? I thought all these header files that gcc requires to compile came pre-installed?

[KabirGandhiok]

I just found stdio.h installed in this path -
/usr/lib/syslinux/com32/include/stdio.h

How do I instruct gcc to pick the header file from this path?
Thanks!

[xenopeek]

Did you install build-essential?

I hate repeating myself, but if you didn't install it then install it.

[KabirGandhiok]

Did you install build-essential?

I hate repeating myself, but if you didn't install it then install it.

My apologies. I did not intend to refute you. I was only curious as to why gcc doesn't recognize stdio.h from the path - /usr/lib/syslinux/com32/include

Since I'm new here, and I do not know much of the Linux file system and the logic behind it and neither do I know much of C or GNU, which is probably why I was curious.

Installing build-essentials has fixed this problem, and I thank you for that, however I would still like to know why installing build-essentials is important when stdio.h exists in the path I listed above (/usr/lib/syslinux/com32/include). Again, I'm just curious but I will go read about this on Google.

Thanks!

Forgive me if my question was stupid, ignorant or a test of your patience.

[xenopeek]

Not a stupid question, but yes you need build-essential (no s at the end) to get the complete gcc compiler stack installed. That's standard across all Debian and Ubuntu based distros.

The stdio.h file you found comes from a syslinux package, which is a collection of boot loaders. I don't know what it's for but likely a minimal implementation of stdio for use in the resource constrained boot loader. This is not the stdio.h file you are searching for

[KabirGandhiok]

Not a stupid question, but yes you need build-essential (no s at the end) to get the complete gcc compiler stack installed. That's standard across all Debian and Ubuntu based distros.

The stdio.h file you found comes from a syslinux package, which is a collection of boot loaders. I don't know what it's for but likely a minimal implementation of stdio for use in the resource constrained boot loader. This is not the stdio.h file you are searching for

Thank you very much for responding and letting me know, this helped greatly

[bkorb]

Now that it is much too late to do anything, why, exactly, would anybody make it so that GCC installs by default but the absolutely necessary headers do not?

[bkorb]

Code: Select all

sudo apt install build-essentials
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package build-essentials

Hmm. Too easy for native English users to add that "s". Oh, well....Still, its addition should be more automatic.

[WharfRat]

It's build-essential not build-essentials

Now that it is much too late to do anything, why, exactly, would anybody make it so that GCC installs by default but the absolutely necessary headers do not?

There are some applications, virtual box as one example, that require modules to be compiled for each kernel therefore the need for a minimal GCC installation.

[berniewalp]

Thanks. I needed that build-essential too. I, too, appended the "s"