gcc 2.96 fails in compiling kernel code and is not an official gcc release. This has resulted in several days reworking of the RH7 installs on three servers to provide developers with an acceptable platform. Please release a replacement gcc and supporting rpms and full instructions on completely removing the 2.96 abortion and installing a proper compiler. Jeez guys what the hell were you thinking???
There is a kgcc compiler provided in the distribution for building kernels, if you install kernel-source and build the kernel provided by us or if you built later 2.2.18pre kernels, it will be used automatically, otherwise you can use make CC='kgcc -D__KERNEL__ -I$(HPATH)' We've spent half a year stabilizing this compiler, see http://www.lwn.net/2000/1005/a/rh-tools.php3 for some reasons we decided to use this compiler and not other (other reasons were ia64 and sparc64 support).