GCC 4.3 configure error

[mungeroo]

Downloaded gcc-4.3.0------ok

$ srcdir/configure
ERROR: No acceptable C compiler in $PATH

Well duh!
I am trying to load gcc because i don't seem to have a C compiler on my system. which i discover while trying to load Ruby.
Whats going on here?

I tried:
$ CC=gcc; export CC
$ srcdir/configure
which resulted in : C compiler cannot create executables

Anyone know what I can do here?

[hugortega]

If you don't have a c compiler, you need to install a pre-compiled version to compile the source code... which is really strange... why don't you use your distro package system to install the compiler?

[mungeroo]

I forgot to mention that this is a hosted VPS i686-pc-linux system where i have no access to any original install disks.
I do have 'root' access to install whatever i want to add.
The system is running an 'Apache/PHP/MySql' site, and i want to install the 'Ruby on Rails' framework.

Could the C compiler be hidden somewhere?
$ which cc - returned not found
Could the C compiler maybe be called s/t else?
$ find / -name 'xxx'