Hello All,
I have installed Ubunto in VMware on windows vista. It was working fine without any problem. But when i tried to compile a C language program it was not able to find the *.h files. So I tried to fetch these libraries through "sudo aptitude" command. I am new to this command, by mistake all the system files got deleted, like GRUB, terminal etc etc...
When I am trying to install these files through Ubunto CD, system is not able to recognize the CD drive itself. I tried to boot the linux again, but even its not rebooting. Please Somebody can help me in this regard. How to get back my linux??

Regards

I am not very familiar with Ubunto but I think now it is better for you to reinstall it. Be careful that for developing (i.e. programming) you need gcc + stdlibc + kernel headers. For header files you can check them in /usr/include.

The default Ubuntu install is quite minimal (as it's easy to add stuff later once you get the hang of apt-get or synaptic package manager), so doesn't include all the tools to do gcc compilation. To get it working type:
> sudo apt-get install build-essential

After this gcc will work. If you've broken your system as much as you suggest then I agree with the second poster that you should reinstall. In general I'd advise doing as much work as possible (including compilation) as a normal user, as this will reduce the chance of breaking the system in future.

Sir, as I am using VMWare on Window vista, Do I need to create a new Virtual machine? What will happen to this allocated space for Ubuntu? Will this allocated space will go waste, can I recover it back?

It'll be easier to re-install using the same VM. If you installed ubuntu from an iso file, then "Edit virtual machine settings" to point your VM's CDROM to the ubuntu install iso file and reboot the VM. If you installed using a physical CD then ensure the VM's CDROM points to a real CDROM drive, insert the linux CDROM and reboot the VM.

From there do a full default ubuntu install which will delete everything from the virtual disk.

In future if you *really* want to delete VMs, you can do it in VmWare server by right-clicking on the VM and selecting "Delete From Disk". An alternative method is to find the directory containing the VM (on my windows box they're in C:\Virtual Machines), and delete it. If you do this, first ensure that VMware isn't running the VM! This deletion would reclaim your disk space. You can then create a new VM with no lost space.

I run a number of OS's under VMWare server. The first thing I do after getting a stable install is take a Snapshot.

This way, when things get fubared, I can go back to where it was before I messed it up.

If what I did works and I'm going to use it that way, I take another Snapshot. That way I don't have to reinstall/recompile when I fubar it again.

If things don't work, the Snapshot takes me back to a known good configuration.

VMWare Server only allows one snapshot, I believe the commercial version allows multiple snapshots. Along with other functions.

Bill

Thanks everybody for all the useful answers. I could install Linux again and working well. I have installed the libraries. But could not get Fortran libraries. Will please anybody have information about fortran complier in Ubuntu?

Regards

I think you need to learn how to investigate this stuff for yourself. Googling for "ubuntu fortran" returns quite a few results. There's some stuff on ubuntu forums (http://ubuntuforums.org). However in this case your first port of call should be synaptic package manager. Use the search facility to search for "fortran" to show all packages that use the word in their description. I chose "gfortran" simply because it sounded suitable. You could equally well do
> sudo apt-get install gfortran
as AFAIK synaptic is just a front end for aptitude. You'll also find packages with attached version numbers in there. Usually the packages without version number are special packages that pull in the latest version of the package you want.

The install showed several libraries being installed. I don't know if the ones you need are included, but you'll find out when you try to compile your code. After this gfortran was available on the command line.


rmallins@mockturtle:~$ gfortran --help
Usage: gfortran [options] file...
Options:
-pass-exit-codes Exit with highest error code from a phase
--help Display this information
--target-help Display target specific command line options
(Use '-v --help' to display command line options of sub-processes)
...
...
rmallins@mockturtle:~$


This page from the gcc wiki describes the two gcc based fortran compilers:
http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/TheOtherGCCBasedFortranCompiler

More links that may be of use:
http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GFortran - gfortran part of the gcc wiki
http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GFortranGettingStarted - "getting started" - from the same wiki
http://www.fesb.hr/~psarajce/LinuxOS.html - "Overview of Fortran F90/95 & Linux OS"
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Fortran/Fortran_examples - Code examples from fortran wikibook.

It just creates a file ,just delete it if you don't like it