I need help. I would love to escape from MS, but I am having a difficult time using Linux. My program experience is limited to statistical programing such as SAS, SPSS, Stata, etc....
I am usually good at figuring things out if I have the right resource, but because I am using a new Shell (Linpus Linux Lite) on a new UMPC, I am not finding anything out there.
I am a professor, and I would like to move to a lower cost free source applications and move my students in that direction as well. But, I need statistical software like SPSS to teach, I tried PSPP as an alternative, but the install keep failing. I have the same problem with WINE. I get the following when I click on the wine install. Below it is what I get with PSPP.

Wine Installer v1.0

Running configure...

checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnuoldld
checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnuoldld
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... no
checking for gcc... no
checking for cc... no
checking for cl.exe... no
configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH
See `config.log' for more details.

Configure failed, aborting install.

Press <ENTER> to continue...


checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
/bin/sh: /home/user/My: No such file or directory
configure: WARNING: `missing' script is too old or missing
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... no
checking for mawk... mawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... no
checking for style of include used by make... none
checking for gcc... no
checking for cc... no
checking for cl.exe... no
configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH
See `config.log' for more details.

Press <ENTER> to continue...

I assume the 'no' are things I need, but I just do not know what I am doing. I would like to take these MS chains off, please help.
Thank you,
G

well, you 're problem is not so compicated.
First of all, you need to install compilation toolkit (gcc, cc, make, ncurse,..)

I don't you if your system uses rpm, deb or not, in the first case, it's quite easy and you probably know how to do.

Linpus is not one of the most popular distros, but it is Fedora-derived, so advice for Fedora/RedHat is likely to apply.

...and that seems something that we can only regard as desirable and thoroughly worthy...

Firstly, I need to point out that you need to do some unlearning. Windows, for example, will have given you some bad habits and you may be trying to make your bad habits easier rather than trying to learn good habits.

For example, in installing new software, your first question should be "Is there a version that I can install 'automagically' from repositories for my distribution?". Only if that fails, should you go round the internet looking for downloadable packages (.rpm files in your case, .deb files if you have a debian-derived distro) or building things from source.

If you have anything that seems to be an application installer, using that should automatically take care of dependancies (libraries, etc) that can be a bit of a headache, if done by hand.

In some cases there are 'extra/development/supplementary/experimental/proprietary' repositories that you may want to set up to give a fuller selection of apps. If, for example, your primary concern is statistical programs, going into your app installer and searching for the words 'statistical' or 'math' might throw up some things you want to look at, even though they are not names that you are familiar with. (A lot will be 'stats ad-ons for packages that you aren't interested in', though.)
Not completely. It is almost certain that this package can work with either awk or mawk (having very sinmilar functions and a slightly different syntax). Either of those will do the job, but not having one or the other is a problem.