Question about building in linux & object files

Hi! I am a programmer that is new to the Linux environment, and I have a question regarding this. Suppose I have a hello.c file, I know it's compiled by: gcc -c hello.c which in turn creates an object file "hello.o", and then when I do gcc -o Hello hello.o It creates a file without any extension, called "Hello". When I say "file Hello" and "file hello.o" to learn the file types, it says: "Hello: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.15, not stripped" and "hello.o: ELF 32-bit LSB relocatable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), not stripped" Now, I thought that the "hello.o" object file was the ".exe" of Windows programs, that I could run it, but what is "Hello"? Besides, when I say gcc -o Hello hello.c directly without doing the compilation first, it doesnt give any "hello.o" file but directly a "Hello" executable. Why is this and what are the differences between "hello.o" and "Hello"? Another question is what does "not stripped" mean? Thanks! Can

URL: