Compiling C Programs for Remote System

["Al Franz" <albert at netmation dot com>]

Sorry for a basic GCC question.  I have been having some problems
compiling C programs on a remote system via a shell, that I apparently
don't have access to all the required libraries and directories.
Getting errors such as "chown" not found, warnings about subscript has
type char, and implicit declaration function. Thus, I have given up and
would now like to compile the programs locally and then upload the
compiled programs to the web hosting server.

My question is how identical (OS software) must the compiling machines
UNIX operating system and the web servers host to execute the program
be.  Does the Linux version have to be identical along with other
special libraries that may be accessed during a compile?  Is it similar
to the Windows world where if you compile on an older OS as long as it
is a 32 bit OS you should be able to run the program on other machines
with other newer operating systems (Microsoft only)?