Ok, I have tried compiling some stuff, but nothing works. I am currently going for mplayer but I keep getting errors. Below is what follows.

field@linux:~/Downloads/mplayer> ./configure
Detected operating system: Linux
Detected host architecture: i386
Checking for cc version ... not found
Checking for gcc version ... not found
Checking for gcc-3.3 version ... not found
Checking for gcc-3.2 version ... not found
Checking for gcc-3.1 version ... not found
Checking for gcc3 version ... not found
Checking for gcc-3.0 version ... not found
Checking for cc version ... not found

*** Please downgrade/upgrade C compiler to version gcc-2.95.x or gcc-3.x! ***

From the errors I have been getting I think that I either am missing somthing with the compiler or it need to be upgraded? Where do I go to fix this? thanks

you definitely need to install your software development packages from your distro's cd's

what distro are you using? most distros will come with a package manager from which you can install those gcc tools (development tools, workstation tools, etc).

Im using SUSE and I did an FTP install so I dont have any CD's

okay, i see

i have never used suse, but if suse will let you do an ftp install, then you should be able to run the ftp again (or access that ftp server) and download all the gcc packages

the gcc packages are almost always binaries, so you can install them with whatever package management system suse has

*edit: there seems to be some gcc stuff in
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/9.0/suse/i586/

oh wow, I looked in there but I have no Idea what files I would need. Im recently new to linux, this is all so confusing.

thanks for the help