I'm running Fedora Core 4 on a home built Pentium 4 with plenty of ram and hard drive space. I need to install the program "Crystallography & NMR System" (a.k.a. CNS), v1.1 which can be found at http://cns.csb.yale.edu/v1.1/

The installation requires working fortran 77 and C compilers. I've installed quite a few software packages but am out of my league here because I'm still a newbie. Does Fedora 4 come with these compiliers? How do I find out? What do I do with these compiliers? The source site has instructions but I don't want to try them without some help. Can someone possibly supplement the more difficult parts of the online instructions? Thanks in advance.

If you have gcc installed, you should have support for both f77 and c.

Well, possibly. This looks like a computational chemistry application, and some of them aren't compatible with Fortran 90, which is what the gfortran shipped with FC4 supports. I've had trouble with gfortran on some applications, so you might need to install the gcc-compat packages which IIRC have the old g77 which has nevergiven me any trouble.

Ok, but I'm not quite sure how to use any compiler. There is a RPM for CNS avilable here http://apt.bioxray.dk/fedora/fc4/i38...ndex_xray.html

Is this easier? What about dependances? How can I check for them? Thanks again.

An RPM is likely to be much easier if you are uncertain about the proper use of the compiler. The RPM program should be able to provide you with a list of unmet dependencies, if any.