The directory I am doing the program in, Penguin\ Power/, is in a Windows partition, either NTFS or FAT. Is that the problem?

If you are trying this in the same directory as before, you may need to pull root again to delete the existing "helloworld". As a normal user, you won't be able to delete and overwrite the file create by root, or change its permissions.

In fact, as root, give the user you created full access to the directory.

chown -R yourusername:users /files/penguin\ power/

Then you should be able to rm the old executable and try compiling again as a normal user.

EDIT: Never mind the above. Yes, doing this on a NTFS partition probably isn't the best idea unless you do some extra work. Try working in your home directory as suggested above.

Possibly... try compiling and running from a Linux partition and let's see how that goes.

I moved the program to my home directory and it runs. the chown command didn't work it said cannot find directory. I don't need to use it though. I'll just use the Linux partition. I would have never thought to try a linux partition to get it working. I'm marking this thread as solved. thank you both

As a post-script: obtoberblu3 might be right.

Try deleting (as root!) the original directory you were using on the NTFS partition. Then start over as a normal user: compile and run your code on the NTFS partition. It may well work.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Programming and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.