beginner a.out question.

[Phil Taylor]

Background: new installation of redhat 7.1 on pentium 90. In bash.

When trying to compile beginner C source code (hello.c) I get an 
output "a.out" that will not run.  

xxxxxxxcommandlinequotationsxxxxxxxxxx

[phil@localhost dir]a.out
bash: a.out: command not found

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I do not understand my problem here: the command is right there in the 
directory ("ls" = a.out and other files).  I have not done any special 
setting up of gcc to run on my machine.  If I need to do some kind of 
configuration I could really use a couple hints on how to get started.  I 
feel quite confused about where gcc resides on my machine and generally how 
I manipulate it (besides through the command line options).

Sincerely, Phil

(thank you, and my apologies if this msg. is inappropriate.)