Installing CDROM drive

I am trying to install a cdrom drive on a Linux system. What needs to be done to update the kernel to install the drivers for the cdrom.

Installing GCC

I am trying to install a GCC compiler on to a Linux system. I have downloaded the file, decompressed it, and untarred it, but it now seems that I need to compile the file. How do I compile a compiler w/o a compiler? Or am I looking in the wrong direction. I have gcc_2.91.66-1.deb and gcc-2.8.1.

installing GCC on a Linux system

I am trying to install a GCC compiler on to a Linux system. I have downloaded the file, decompressed it, and untarred it, but it now seems that I need to compile the file. How do I compile a compiler w/o a compiler? Or am I looking in the wrong direction. If you could help that would be great.