so im trying to configure lynx, and it tells me
checking whether the C compiler (gcc ) works... no

any idea what's going on?

A few options:
gcc is too old
You are passing bad CFLAGS
gcc doesn't exist
gcc is actually an alias for an incompatible compiler

Those are the baics I would start with.

you probably don't have the header files ( development packages) installed in your distribution.

from your command prompt type:

which gcc

that will tell you if you have gcc installed.

-netstv

so im sure that gcc is installed, and its the newest version, but somehow it wont work. my friend to me that possibly i installed the newer version over the older version, which can be problematic. is there any way i can purge my computer of gcc and then install it again?

Ok. So. You still need to type

gcc -v

that will tell you what version of gcc you are running.

I haven't ever tried to install another version of gcc. My guess is, if you did it the way the INSTALL or README told you to do it that it would do all the right stuff to prevent problems. GNU things are pretty good about taking care of those types of things.

The bottom line is you need to ensure that you have the right version and by doing the "gcc -v" you are going to find out what version you have. That will solve your problem.

Because you may have thought you installed the latest version but you may not have installed it in the right place so you may be running an older version of gcc.

So "gcc -v" and "which gcc" will tell you all you need.

-netstv

i've gone through several versions on this box, including these:
egcs-2.91.66 3.0.1 3.0.2 3.0.4 3.1 3.2.2 and currently have 2.95.3 and 3.2.2 installed and i pick between them as i wish.
i've gotten that error twice. once when i stripped all the symbols from all libraries on the system (no compiling after that), and once when i didn't have the libc header files installed when i first set up the box. when a package checks to see if the compiler works, it compiles a very simple program, and if it doesn't work, for whatever reason, you get that message.