Comment 3 for bug 79418

>you are wrong in your assertion that Ubuntu
>allows you to compile hello.c with nothing more than
>installing a few packages. There is nothing in the
>standard packages that includes build-essential. Try
>it: Do a fresh installation on a clean machine and,
>without using the sudo apt-get, try to compile
>hello.c. You will not be able to.

you can compile hello.c with nothing more than installing a few packages. running sudo apt-get IS installing a few packages.

if build-essential is not in the ubuntu install CD (is it not?), you could use this trick:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PackageCDs