For Dummies Linux All-in-One, 4th Edition 978-0-470-77019-1 User Manual

Chapter 1: Programming in Linux

In This Chapter

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L

inux comes loaded with all the tools you need to develop software. (All 
you have to do is install them.) In particular, it has all the GNU soft-

ware-development tools, such as GCC (C and C++ compiler), GNU make, and 
the GNU debugger. This chapter introduces you to programming, describes 
the software-development tools, and shows you how to use them. Although 
I provide examples in the C and C++ programming languages, the focus is 
not on showing you how to program in those languages but on showing you 
how to use various software-development tools (such as compilers, make, 
and debugger).

The chapter concludes with a brief explanation of how the Free Software 
Foundation’s GNU General Public License (GPL) may affect any plans you 
might have to develop Linux software. You need to know about the GPL 
because you use GNU tools and GNU libraries to develop software in Linux.

An Overview of Programming

If you’ve written computer programs in any programming language, you can 
start writing programs on your Linux system quickly. If you’ve never written 
a computer program, however, you need two basic resources before you 
begin to write code: a look at the basics of programming and a quick review 
of computers and their major parts. This section offers an overview of com-
puter programming — just enough to get you going.

A simplified view of a computer

Before you get a feel for computer programming, you need to understand 
where computer programs fit in with the overall scheme of computing. 

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