A few questions from my blunderings.
 

Well I've been screwing around with Suse 9.1 some more and some questions have inevitably come up. :D

Firstly, the ever-popular matter of compiling and installing programs.

I'm trying to install a program-well any program really.

When I try ./config to begin the steps for installations, it informs me that I don't have any C compiler installed:

Secondly, the install command tells me I haven't set any proper arguments. Would anyone like to tell me what they are and how I work with them? :D Basically in short I'm trying to install and configure Wine as there's a lone program from windows that I'd like to run in Suse (Anarchy Online Relay Chat for the interested). I got Wine to run-once-by copying its config file from another folder. Ever afterwards it informs me that it cannot locate the config file.

Secondly, I recently swapped out my optical drives for replacment and its causing me issues when trying to burn discs.

/dev/hdh seems to be mounted multiple times as everytime I copy a disc I need to use the umount command on it several times. Although Yase only lists the two optical drives that should be there, three drives are listed in drives:/

Thank you all for suffering my eternally newb self. :D

Also, when I'm trying to access Wine from command line it asks if I have X running and my display configured:

Have you tried 'make config' ? the usual process is:

make config
make
make install

or:

make
make install

the make thing is what activates the compiler(i think)

the compiler should be built in, what distro do you use (if you say SuSe 9.0 form a magazine cover, then find another disro, it just sucks)

the compilers are gcc and g++, you should be able to find em everywhere.
I think anyway, (please dont flame I'm a rellative neophite.)

lol, I'm using 9.1 from the Suse website. Anyways, you might be right about the crap distro:

bash: make: command not found

No development tools come with SuSE 9.1 Personal (sounds like the one you have). You can either install these tools on your own, which generally seems to be pretty difficult judging by the number of threads i've seen on the topic, or you can get SuSE 9.1 Professional by either ordering it or doing an FTP install.

Agreed. From everything I've read and experienced as a newbie, network and installation problems are the biggest clinches with Suse 9.1.

Perhaps I'll try Redhat next. Its a step up, but thanks to the generousity of a friend I have a quite good guide for it. :D

no not redhat!!!! Anything but that, its second only to windows as worst corperately built product!!! Welcome to dependancy hell

Dude, if you want a nice Distro with a pretty gui and a good core go with mepis. it's based on debain, but has some nice auto config stuff built in. you can set up apt-get easily this way, and never have to worry about searching to download programs again.

I'm not one to dig up the old Linux v Windows argument, least of all on this board, but I will point out that for all its lack of security, I can play games on Windows, its easy to configure, pretty much all hardware is compatible with it and it does what I want, when I want it without having to utter arcane commands. :p

Anyways, I'll start reading up on Mepis. :)

i hate windoze, but i will say that it does what the average computer user wants it to...when it works. the problem is, the "insert cd and click thorugh menus and install software like magic" makes it very difficult for the average user to diagnose problems when it isn't working (which is only about 75% of the time with xp).

anyway, i agree that redhat is too commercialized. i *do* feel, however, that it is a good place to start for a linux newbie. its use is widespread, which means google searching for solutions to problems tends to be useful. also, since it is so widely used there is a high probability that someone you know uses some variant of redhat (or FC) and can help you out in person when you are in a real jam.

after you get comfy with redhat, you can move along to other distros.

--vq