[conspire] Breezy Badger/configure something

[Rick Moen]

Hoping to close the loop:

> Why isn't gcc on my $PATH?  I know it's installed.

I'll bet it _isn't_.  Here's why I would guess that:
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-3642.html says...
  
  Default Ubuntu system does not include developement tools. If you need
  to do your own compilation for wine, or even the kernel yourself, it
  will be a difficult task. You will have to download all the required
  development tools and install them yourself. And... in most cases,
  conflicts between the different libraries will eventually kill all your
  enthusiasm.

  I downloaded many distros and still stick to Fedora because I need to
  compile programs in gcc. As a File Server, I would dare say SME Server
  is the lightest. It all depends on your requirements. But... through
  logical thinking, after a while, I may be more inclined towards Suse in
  long term aspect.

  Well... you can also obviously get it from their repository, in package
  called 'build-essential', by simply running 'apt-get install build-essential'


"build-essential" is, if memory serves, a meta-package the installation
of which pulls down onto your system a good selection of software-build
tools.

Checking the package entry for that metapackage on my Debian "etch"
system:


Package: build-essential
Priority: optional
Section: devel
Installed-Size: 48
Maintainer: Scott James Remnant <scott at netsplit.com>
Architecture: i386
Version: 11.1
Depends: libc6-dev | libc-dev, gcc (>= 4:4.0), g++ (>= 4:4.0), make, dpkg-dev (>= 1.1
3.5)
Filename: pool/main/b/build-essential/build-essential_11.1_i386.deb
Size: 6834
MD5sum: 7eb1a8379930b5c57bf3bd981fb40229
Description: informational list of build-essential packages
 If you do not plan to build Debian packages, you don't need this
 package.  Moreover this package is not required for building Debian
 packages.
 .
 This package contains an informational list of packages which are
 considered essential for building Debian packages.  This package also
 depends on the packages on that list, to make it easy to have the
 build-essential packages installed.
 .
 If you have this package installed, you only need to install whatever
 a package specifies as its build-time dependencies to build the
 package.  Conversely, if you are determining what your package needs
 to build-depend on, you can always leave out the packages this
 package depends on.
 .
 This package is NOT the definition of what packages are
 build-essential; the real definition is in the Debian Policy Manual.
 This package contains merely an informational list, which is all
 most people need.   However, if this package and the manual disagree,
 the manual is correct.
Tag: devel::packaging, role::content:text, suite::debian


So, installing that metapackage forces (through its dependency tree)
installation of gcc, make, dpkg-dev, g++, and a set of libc development
libs.