G++, the GNU C++ Compiler is a compiler in Linux systems which was developed to compile C++ programs. The file extensions that can be compiled with G++ are .c
and .cpp
.
The aim of this tutorial is to install G++ the C++ compiler on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish Linux. This will be achieved by installing the build-essential
package.
In this tutorial you will learn:
- How to install G++ compiler on Ubuntu 22.04
- How to Check C++ compiler version
- How to Compile basic C++ program from source code
- How to run G++ to compile C++ program

Category | Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used |
---|---|
System | Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish |
Software | GCC |
Other | Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command. |
Conventions |
# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user |
Installing G++ the C++ compiler on Ubuntu 22.04 step by step instructions
Although you can install the C++ compiler separately by installation of the
gcc
package, the recommended way to install the C++ compiler on Ubuntu 22.04 is by installation of the entire development package build-essential
.
- Get started by opening a command line terminal and typing the following two commands to install C++ compiler by installation of the development package
build-essential
:$ sudo apt update $ sudo apt install build-essential
DO YOU NEED MULTIPLE C AND/OR C++ COMPILER VERSIONS?
Visit “How to switch between multiple GCC and G++ compiler versions on Ubuntu 22.04” to see how to install multiple compiler versions on the same Ubuntu system. - Check C compiler version to verify installation:
$ gcc --version gcc (Ubuntu 11.2.0-16ubuntu1) 11.2.0
- Create a basic C++ code source. For example let’s create hello world C++ program. Save the following code as
hello.cc
text file:#include
using namespace std; int main() { cout << "Hello, World!"; return 0; } - Save the above code within
hello.cc
file, compile and execute it:$ g++ -o hello hello.cc $ ./hello Hello, World!
Closing Thoughts
In this tutorial, we saw how to install G++, the very simple C++ compiler on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish. We also learned how to create a simple Hello World C++ program in order to test the new compiler.