Missing C compiler?

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Wed, 4 May 2005, Ken Morley wrote:

> I apologize in advance if these seem like silly questions, but I'm a bit of
> a newbie, at least when working with Linux at this level.
>
> I've just installed RedHat ES3 with a close-to-default software package
> configuration.  I just select BASE components for X Windows, GNOME Desktop,
> Graphical Internet, Games, Server Configuration Tools, DNS Name Server,
> Administration Tools & Printing Support.  I didn't select any optional
> components for these packages.
>
> I then removed sendmail, redhat-config-samba & samba using RPM.  I then ran
> Up2Date and updated everything except mdadm, perl, samba, smaba-common and
> open-office.org-libs and restarted.
>
> Perl 5.8.0.88-4 is currently installed.  Now, I want to manually install the
> latest version of Perl.  When I run "sh Configure -de" it aborts with an
> error that it can't find the C compiler.  It's looking for "cc".
>
> I thought that maybe I needed to install the base Software Development
> package, so I tried System Settings => Add/Remove Applications.  When I try
> that, it fails with an unlocatable package krb5-libs which is required by
> krb5-workstation.
>
> Here are my questions:
>
> 1) Shouldn't the base install that I did include a working C compiler?

No.  Most apps are distributed as binary anyway--people who compile stuff 
from scratch are known in the vernacular as "developers" 8^).  You need 
the development tools if you want compliers.

>
> 2) If so, what is it called (ie: cc) and where does it reside?

It would be gcc.

>
> 3) How do I recover from here to get the C compiler installed so that I can
> update Perl?

Add/Remove Applications doesn't work properly after packages have been 
updated from the original distribution.  You need to

 	up2date gcc

>
> 4) Should I uninstall Perl before installing the new version (I'll bet there
> are too many dependencies for that to be practical)?  If so, how?

If you are building Perl from source (rather than an RPM), then I would 
just install it in /usr/local.  Then system scripts can use the FC Perl 
and you can use yours.  If you are building an RPM from an SRPM, just 
upgrade with "rpm -u".  You are still at some risk for breaking some 
dependencies that way, though.

>
> Thanks for your suggestions!
>
>
>

-- 
 		Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs