Ok, well i've learned the necessary commands and such to install thru the shell, but now that i know that I am getting a "configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH" error with every programs that i've tried to intall.....what needs to be done to fix this.

P.S. also if you need to know, I'm trying to install Python and also Pilot Link for my Handspring....

that is telling you that you do not have a c compiler installed. The simpilest way to install it would be from your install cds. Every disto does it a little different. In redhat there used to be a add/remove programs(something like that). You will want to install all of your development stuff.

It is a good idea to place your distibution that you use in your profile, that way peole can be more helpful :-)

oh, sorry, it's mandrake 10.0....ill try that tho

ok just installed all of the development programs and this is the message that i get:
....
[orange_soup@cpe-24-163-255-65 pilot-link-0.11.8]$ ./configure
checking for id... /bin/id
checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking target system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking for working aclocal-1.4... missing
checking for working autoconf... missing
checking for working automake-1.4... missing
checking for working autoheader... missing
checking for working makeinfo... found
checking for gcc... no
checking for cc... no
checking for cc... no
checking for cl... no
configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH
See `config.log' for more details.
...

try this command
this should tell you if your compiler is installed. If it is installed it will tell you the location, example /usr/bin/gcc

if it is installed, I am stumped to why it would not be finding it.

nm, apparently i didn't install all of the programs, including the gcc ones. But now it's aksing for disk 4 to install these programs, and mandrake only gave me three??