[Ubuntu-BD] problem installing vlc-8.0.4a

[~Split_Fire~]

G,day,

I am absolutely a beginner in linux. I am using Ubuntu 7.10 and don't have
any internet connection in home. Thats why, I 've downloaded the file
vlc-0.8.4a.tar.gz and wanted to install it. Here is the link :(
http://downloads.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/0.8.4a/vlc-0.8.4a.tar.gz).

And I tried following commands:

tar -xvf vlc-0.8.4a.tar.gz
cd vlc-0.8.4a.tar.gz
./configure

Then it shows the output with an error message:
checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnulibc1
checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnulibc1
checking target system type... i686-pc-linux-gnulibc1
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for gawk... no
checking for mawk... mawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking whether to enable maintainer-specific portions of Makefiles... no
checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name... configure: error: C
compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details.

Any problem with my gcc? Can someone please suggest me what has to be done
in these cases?

And I want to know another thing, my macbook is configured with core 2 duo
(1.83 GHz), 512MB RAM and 64MB graphics card. Which latest version of Ubuntu
will be best suitable? However, current version 7.10 is working fine.

Thanks.