How to Install Development Tools on Ubuntu, Debian & Mint

Development tools are required to install on your system if you have planned to build software. It’s also useful for building packages on your system. Development tools contain a few general useful tools like GCC, g++, make, libc6-dev, and dpkg-dev packages. You need to install build-essential on Ubuntu and Linux Mint systems which include all other required packages as dependencies.

This tutorial help you to install development tools on your Ubuntu and other Debian-based Linux systems.

Install Development Tools on Ubuntu, Debian and Mint

The development tools packages are available under default apt repositories for most of the Ubuntu-based systems. Use the following commands to install the development tools package on your Ubuntu and Linux Mint systems.

sudo apt update 
sudo apt install build-essential 

Check Installed Versions

After successful installation of the build-essential package on your system, let’s check installed versions of important binaries.

Check the version of GCC on your system:

gcc --version 

Output
gcc (Ubuntu 13.3.0-6ubuntu2~24.04) 13.3.0
Copyright (C) 2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Also check the make binary version:

make --version

Output
GNU Make 4.3
Built for aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu
Copyright (C) 1988-2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later 
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

You can see that both GCC and Make are free software provided by the Free Software Foundation. While you are free to use, modify, and share them, they come with no warranty or guarantee of suitability for any purpose.

Conclusion

This quick how-to guide helps you install development tools on Ubuntu, Debian, and other Debian-based Linux systems. By following the steps outlined, you can set up a robust environment for coding, compiling, and testing software. These tools are essential for developers and system administrators to efficiently manage and customize their systems.