Note to self: It's actually worth the effort to read the msg with thought before replying... :-)
Anyway, I doubt you find any simpler stuff from older compilers, nor proper IDEs. Makefiles etc are not Linux really, but very integral part of any C coding, from the very beginning (C was deviced for writing Unix). Even SAS/C has smake!
IMO one does him/herself a favor by learning to use the simple but yet powerful tools, such as make.
Also, gcc isn't really that bad, and it has one huge advantage over other compilers: It's available of dozens of platforms. So if you use std GNU make and gcc, your project can easily build for virtually hundreds of target systems.
PS. StormC 4 uses gcc.
PPS. Of the "older" compilers I prefer SAS/C.