alert!!!!
I've searched hi and low but haven't found any help. Hopefully someone here can lead me to the righteous path of enlightenment.
I'm trying to install some drivers, the INSTALL says to "do the usual make/make install/ configure'. Well when I try any of them I get errors and can go no further.
I get this same type of error when I try to install other items too. I've read that people say you need to install the rpm, etc. Ok fine, how? Where? I even read that I need to find out what rpm's I have installed. Fine, how? lol I tried running urpmi at the console and it says 'command no found' so I'm obviously not doing it right. Im really really really new, so I ask that you don't tell me just what to do, but also how to do it.

Please help this rookie. I'm not asking for a fish, I'm asking to be taught how to fish. Thank you very much.

You simply don't have a compiler installed. To install it, open Mandrake's 'Software installation' graphical tool and choose to install all 'gcc' and 'g++' packages.
It may be easier to do it under console...Open a terminal and type
su
(will ask you for password, type root's password; beeing root is needed to install programs)
urpmi gcc
(when running urpmi as root you shouldn't get 'no such command' type of error) and then
urpmi g++

I ran the console commands and this is what I received
urpmi gcc
Everything already installed
urpmi g++
no package named g++

so then I tried this
urpmi c++
The following packages contain c++:
Now what?

It'll install you the newest version.

So basically you do, have gcc (c compiler) but not g++(C++ extension for gcc). Do as Mara said, open Mandrake Control Center(you can simply type "mcc" at the terminal to call Mandrake Control Center) and try to install g++ from there. Mandrake can be really tricky to compile things though, you are always better off using Mandrake rpm's.

i faced the same problem, any idea on redhat 9?

Go to this website:

http://rpm.pbone.net

Search for the complier you're looking for. It will give you the link, if found, to the RPM. Then download it and install it. It worked great for me. Just select Red Hat as your distribution and you should be fine.