There are a lot of pre-compiled binaries available for Mac OS X, but sooner or later you will need to compile something from source.
Writing and Compiling C programs on Linux
Most Linux and Unix programs are written in C. When you download source for a project, it will often be C or C++ source code. You don’t necessarily need to know a darn thing about C or anything else to compile the source if you aren’t changing it. It may be helpful for you to understand a bit if you are having problems with the compile, but even that isn’t really necessary.
Compiling and Installing Software From Source Code
I have only been using Linux for about three years, but I love it; the idea of Open Source, community, freedom, etc. I have found many topics concerning using and configuring Linux for which the documentation is either outdated or non-existent.