This code is so simple it should compile on any Linux box (i suspect any unix
box even) that has the ncurses-dev package and make installed. simply typing 

make in the source directory should build it

there's a commented option in display.c that you can uncomment before building
to allow game of life to show live cells as random characters, i think this 
looks more visually appealing if you're a fan of the matrix, however some
of the random charcters are interpreted as too characters by the terminal
which looks a little jittery.