linker error on feather PLEASE HELP

[willyweedle]

I'm a nooblet and i recently installed feather linux on my 386. I just bought a linmodem (lucent,agere) and have been trying to install the package that comes with the modem. It requires me to compile source to use it but every time I try to compile *anything* (even a simple hello world) i get a linker error:

/bin/ld: cannot find -lgcc_s
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

So, I say to hell with it and download a lucent modem package thats for feather but its a .deb file. i tried dpkg -i thefile, but it says:

unable to access dpkg status area

I've run low on hope of ever weening myself off XP. PLEASE HELP THE NOOBLET!!!

[iwanabeguru]

only root can install packages

[willyweedle]

I was root...