Setting Up Your Environment

Step 1 — Install a compiler

The compiler is the core tool. It reads your .cpp files and produces native machine code. The three major C++ compilers are GCC (the GNU Compiler Collection), Clang (part of the LLVM project), and MSVC (Microsoft Visual C++). GCC and Clang are interchangeable for most purposes; MSVC is the native choice on Windows. Install whichever is standard for your platform:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential cmake

# Verify
g++ --version    # should print GCC version
cmake --version  # should print CMake version

# Install Xcode Command Line Tools (installs clang++)
xcode-select --install

# Then install CMake via Homebrew
brew install cmake

# Verify
clang++ --version
cmake --version

# Option A: Visual Studio (full IDE, includes MSVC + CMake)
# Download from https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/
# Install "Desktop development with C++" workload

# Option B: MSYS2 (gives you GCC + CMake in a Unix-like shell)
# 1. Download MSYS2 from https://www.msys2.org/
# 2. Open "MSYS2 MINGW64" terminal and run:
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake

# Option C: WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) — run Ubuntu inside Windows
# Then follow the Linux instructions above

Step 2 — Install VS Code and the C++ extension

Visual Studio Code is a lightweight, free editor that runs on all platforms. Its C++ extension (from Microsoft) adds IntelliSense code completion, inline error highlighting, debugging support, and integration with CMake. Download VS Code from code.visualstudio.com, then install the following extensions from the Extensions panel (Ctrl+Shift+X):

Step 3 — Create your first CMake project

CMake is a build system generator — it reads a configuration file called CMakeLists.txt and generates the native build files for your platform (Makefiles on Linux/macOS, Visual Studio project files on Windows, etc.). You write one CMakeLists.txt and CMake handles platform differences for you. For the Hello World program, the configuration is tiny:

Create this directory structure:

hello-project/
├── CMakeLists.txt
└── src/
    └── main.cpp

CMakeLists.txt:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.16)
project(Hello CXX)

set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED ON)

add_executable(hello src/main.cpp)

src/main.cpp:

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    std::cout << "Hello, CMake!" << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

Each line of the CMake file does something specific:

Building and running

CMake uses an out-of-source build pattern: you create a separate build/ directory so generated files never mix with your source. From the project root:

# Configure — creates the build directory and generates build files
cmake -S . -B build

# Build — compiles and links
cmake --build build

# Run
./build/hello       # Linux / macOS
build\hello.exe     # Windows

With the CMake Tools extension in VS Code, you can do all of this through the UI: a status bar at the bottom shows the current kit (compiler), build type, and target. Click Build or press F7. To run with the debugger, press F5.

For development builds, add -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug to the configure step. Debug builds include debugging symbols and disable optimizations, making the debugger more useful. Release builds (-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release) enable full optimizations for the final shipping binary.

Verify your setup

Run through this checklist to confirm everything is working before moving on: