gcc version issues

[Gib Bogle <bogle@ihug.co.nz>]

My Debian system is 2.4.18, which was built with gcc 2.95.4.  I want to
compile some software which apparently requires gcc 2.96 or later.  What
should I do?  My first thought was simply to install a later version of
gcc, but it occurs to me that this could create problems for me later,
for example if I wanted to rebuild the kernel.

thanks
Gib