I am trying to compile a source code in my virtual Red Hat. I tried to do so with the GCC compiler but the terminal returns that "the command is not found". the command line I am issuing is the following: gcc source.c -o outputname
Here is the output of uname -a respectively: "linux machinename 2.4.20-8"
You are using a very ancient version of Red-Hat, that hasn't been supported for over a decade, I believe. Get something current. That was a community version of Red-Hat, and the community versions are now Fedora, while Red-Hat itself is commercial, but you can get trial version if you register with Red-Hat, or if you don't want to, then go for CentOS which is community based clone of Red-Hat.
Then try your command again