GCC Install Trouble

[Morford]

I recently did a fresh install of Red Hat 8.0 on one of my systems, with no problems. I then built/installed GNU Make 3.80 over the version that came with the OS (3.79, IIRC), then installed GCC 3.3.2 on top of the standard version (I think it was 3.3). The computer didn't give me any errors during the compile/install process, but now I can't start KDE. When I issue the command "startx", the system appears to start up the window manager, but shortly dumps me back at the command line, with the following error:

kdeinit: /lib/libgcc_s.so.1: version 'GCC_3.3' not found (required by /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5)

I have since attempted to "./configure" the latest version of Python, but that also quits early:

checking whether the C++ compiler works... configure: error: cannot run C++ compiled programs.

Of course, I am unable to run "make" and build the thing.

Any ideas?

EDIT: I am currently recompiling GCC with "./configure --enable-shared" (I know that enable-shared is default, but it couldn't hurt to explicitly specify it). Will update after it's finished installing.

[Morford]

Decided to just skip it and reinstall Linux. This time I'm just going to stick with the OS-standard Make and GCC.

However, for future reference, can anyone explain to me (or provide a link) how to get GCC and Make running on a machine with no dev tools? It seems that one needs GCC to build Make, and also need Make to build GCC... a vicious cycle.