Another alternative is to use VirtualBox and install the distro of your choice. It is an absolute doddle to setup and I have had no issues installing Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, Slackware, Gentoo and several others

grail;
funny that you mention that, as that was just what I downloaded last nite, and found it working perfectly this AM.
After John VV's comment:
---and my discovery that it was a Fedora system that I was already using (and used to), I decided to go that route.
The appliance that had been provided in the course actually included some additions (ristretto image viewer, audio,etc) and I don't know if such things would be available in usual distros, so I wanted to stick with that, and VirtualBox had been one of original options recommended in the course (with slower being the only disadvantage).

Anyway, immediate problem clearly solved. If I ever an interest beyond simply learning C, then I may look into many of the other suggestions in this thread.
Thanks again to all for your time & attention.

My last post said that everything was solved, but wouldn't you know that VB lasted only a day before it, too crashed and burned, and doesn't function with re-install, etc.
Looks like I'm stuck with Dev C++. If I could only figure out how to get GDB to function on that platform--------