installing GCC on a Linux system

[Steve Girard]

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. Thanks.