Following steps in 'Linux Basics For Hackers' (no starch press) and installed Kali in a VirtualBox on my PC. Working through some of the steps in the book for installing additional software and while running the command:

./configure --enable-sourcefire && make && sudo make install

got the following:

configure: error: in '/root/snort-2.9.12':
configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH
See 'config.log; for more details

In config.log found the following:

configure: 3462: checking for gcc
configure: 3492: result: no
configure: 3555: checking for cc
configure: 3602: result: no
configure: 3658: checking for cl.exe
configure: 3688: result: no
configure: 3712: error: in '/root/snort-2.9.12':
configure: 3714: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH

Here is the result of 'echo $PATH':

/usr/local/sbin:usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/lib

On several web-sites the supposed solution was to run:

apt-get build-essential

but that simply returns:

E: Invalid operation build-essential

I do find the following directory:

/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/8

What am I missing?

Dan