What compilers/ libraries ect do I need installed so that I can compile most software I download of the net? The truth is that I have pretty much no idea what the difference is between peil, c++ ect and just installed all the programming system stuff and libraries that came with my distro as I was constantly having problems installing things that came in binary form... as I couldn´t always find RPMS for RH9.686 blah blah for my system... while we are on that subject, .386 rpms are just like generic ones that will work on any x86 system? I guess it would be better to get 686 ones for my Celeron 1700..?

You need: all packages with names beginning with 'gcc' (compiler). Libraries...hard to say. If you have much free space, install all packages with names beginning with 'lib' and all with 'devel' in their name (it it'll take 2-3GB).

386 RPMs for RedHat 9.0 will work in your system(but when you have a choice, choose i686), they're generic.

Ok then its just my install takes up about 2.4gb and I thought maby I had installed a whole lot of stuff I didn´t need.

Thanks for the info

Adam