How do I fix the Rust error "linker 'cc' not found" for Debian on Windows 10?

Question

I'm running Debian on Windows 10 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) and installed Rust using the command:

curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh 

There were no errors in the install, but when I tried to compile with rustc I got the error linker 'cc' not found.

Answer 1

The Linux Rust installer doesn't check for a compiler toolchain, but seems to assume that you've already got a C linker installed! The best solution is to install the tried-and-true gcc toolchain.

sudo apt install build-essential 

If you need to target another architecture, install the appropriate toolchain and target the compilation as follows:

rustc --target=my_target_architecture -C linker=target_toolchain_linker my_rustfile.rs