Maybe simple...

sudo apt-get install gcc

... could be enough?

Your line

gcc‬‬ ‫‪-g‬‬ ‫‪-m32‬‬ ‫‪-o‬‬ ‫‪skip‬‬ ‫‪skip.c

is ASCII broken. There are strange (invisible) characters before the spaces. Check it here.

Also, to run gcc with -m32 flag on, you need to install gcc-multilib first:

apt-get install gcc-multilib

Sorry I can't comment yet.

But I must point out that the original ln command is incorrect, which creates an incorrect relative link usr/bin/gcc-4.8 under /usr/bin/

Correct command is

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gcc-4.8 /usr/bin/gcc

or

sudo ln -s gcc-4.8 /usr/bin/gcc

You need to update your system:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install gcc

If sudo apt-get update does not work for you, you should maybe try sudo apt-get clean to clean the cache and then execute sudo apt-get update

Run the command:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

gcc-12 is not available in ubuntu 20.04, so we need to compile it from source code, here are the steps which I borrowed from this video:

• Step 1: clone gcc source code and checkout gcc-12 branch

$ git clone https://gcc.gnu.org/git/gcc.git gcc-source
$ cd gcc-source/
$ git branch -a
$ git checkout remotes/origin/releases/gcc-12

• Step 2: make another build dir

Note this is important as running ./configure from within the source directory is not supported as documented here.

$ mkdir ../gcc-12-build
$ cd ../gcc-12-build/
$ ./../gcc-source/configure --prefix=$HOME/install/gcc-12 --enable-languages=c,c++

• Step 3: installing GCC prequisites and run configure again

The missing libraries will be shown in above ./confgiure output, search and install them one by one.

$ apt-cache search MPFR
$ sudo apt-get install libmpfrc++-dev
$ apt-cache search MPC | grep dev
$ sudo apt-get install libmpc-dev
$ apt-cache search GMP | grep dev
$ sudo apt-get install libgmp-dev
$ sudo apt-get install gcc-multilib
$ ./../gcc-source/configure --prefix=$HOME/install/gcc-12 --enable-languages=c,c++

An alternative is to run the download_prerequisites script.

$ cd ../
$ cd gcc-source/
$ ./contrib/download_prerequisites
$ ./../gcc-source/configure --prefix=$HOME/install/gcc-12 --enable-languages=c,c++

• Step 4: compile gcc-12

$ make -j16

Still flex is missing:

$ sudo apt-get install flex
$ ./../gcc-source/configure --prefix=$HOME/install/gcc-12 --enable-languages=c,c++
$ make -j16
$ make install

Another way is to use Ubuntu 22.04 where gcc-12 is available. In Ubuntu 22.04, gcc-12 can be installed with apt:

$ sudo apt install gcc-12

I took an update today on my Ubuntu 22.04 and encountered the error with VMware Workstation 16 Pro 16.2.4 build-20089737 shown in the question here.

GNU C Compiler (gcc) version 12.3.0, was not found. If you installed it in a non-default path you can specify the path below. Otherwise refer to your distribution's documentation for installation instructors and click Refresh to search again in default locations.

I've used VMWare every day since this OS was fresh installed in 2022.

There were three problems to fix:

Missing gcc 12

My gcc --version is 11.4.0. I checked ls /usr/bin/x86_64-linux-gnu-* and version 12 was not there.

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/ppa -y
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install g++-12 gcc-12

Then try again.

skb_gso_segment undefined

The build breaks because of gcc header changes. The VMWare build provides a log file like /tmp/vmware-user/vmware_1234.log that shows the compiler error.

This particular function, skb_gso_segment, has moved to a new header that VMWare bridge.c does not #include.

To see for yourself the header where this function is defined, cd /usr/src/linux-hwe-6.5-headers-6.5.0-14/include/net and grep skb_gso_segment *.

To fix VMWare code:

$ sudo su
$ cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source

# back up original tar file
$ cp vmnet.tar vmnet.tar.original

# change the code
$ tar -xvf vmnet.tar
$ nano vmnet-only/bridge.c

After the #include <linux/netdevice.h>, add

   #include <net/gso.h>

Save and exit. Then rebuild the tar file.

$ tar -cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only
$ exit

Then try again.

__pte_offset_map undefined

Next the build fails because a function has changed names. In VMWare Workstation 17, the code in pgtbl.h was changed like this by VMWare:

#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE >= KERNEL_VERSION(6,5,0)
            pte_t *pte = pte_offset_kernel(pmd, addr);
#else
            pte_t *pte = pte_offset_map(pmd, addr);
#endif

To fix v16, I made a similar change.

$ sudo su
$ cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source

# back up original tar file
$ cp vmmon.tar vmmon.tar.original

# change the code
$ tar -xvf vmmon.tar
$ nano vmmon-only/include/pgtbl.h

In the editor, search down to pte_offset_map and change it to pte_offset_kernel.

Save and exit. Then rebuild the tar file.

$ tar -cf vmmon.tar vmmon-only
$ exit

Then try again.

This got me back in operation.

Vijay's comment fixed my problem. Thank you Vijay.

The answer is here.

That particular error message may indicate that you have held packages, but it may also indicate a different problem.

You can get a list of actual held packages with:

dpkg --get-selections | grep hold

If there are none, or none look related, then it's probably something else. Check carefully the output of the command you were trying when you got the error message, as there may be other clues in the full output from that command, aside from the error message.

Another method of troubleshooting may be to use aptitude rather than apt-get to try to install your package:

sudo aptitude install gcc

Aptitude will give up less easily, and will attempt to find solutions which may involve modifying other packages. It may give you more explanation of the problem and options for fixing it.

Occasionally aptitude will be too eager to remove or downgrade large numbers of packages to satisfy your request, in which case retrying with -f changes its priorities and helps it come up with solutions that involve removing/downgrading fewer packages even if it means not all changes you requested can go ahead:

sudo aptitude -f install gcc

The last two options fixed my problem, i hope that it helps someone else too.

You'll have to completely purge what you have and perform a fresh install.

Much of this is done automatically when using the GUI. But when using the commandline you have to be specific to remove the leftover packages and other files manually.

First completely purge/remove what you currently have installed, which isn't working. Clean and update your repository cache and packages, then freshly install gcc.

$ sudo apt purge gcc
$ sudo apt-get autoremove
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade
$ sudo apt full-upgrade
$ sudo apt install gcc

Check for errors between commands. There shouldn't be errors. If they are, address the suggested remedy provided to fix the error. For instance, there might be an occasional warning or error such as:

E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.

To resolve that particular state, run:

$ sudo dpkg --configure -a

Then after fixing that part, proceed to the next step.

Each of the commands should give a clean state. You'll then have a fresh install from the repository.