Help with work on interfacing PIC16F877A and a bluetooth module

I started working on an embedded systems project as a part of my college work but hit a roadblock almost immediately.I am relatively new to embedded C. I have minor experience in coding with assembly language. Some of the doubt i cant seem to find a suitable answer to even after hours of Googling, so i thought i'll post it here for some experiened users' advice :)

i) Is there any good compiler for embedded C that run on Linux platform?

ii) Is simple UART connection (and code) enough for interfacing the PIC and a bluetooth module?

iii) Which is a better option, the PIC16 or MSP430?

iv) Any simpe/cheap bluetooth module that is easily integrable?

try http://www.arduino.cc/ http://www.arduino.cc/

I cant use a whole board like aurdino because i am trying to cut down on size. It is for integration with a portable insulin pump.

Do you mean like the ones produced by Maxim?

Hey a little vague problem discription in my opinion but arduino is a great starting point because its easy to get going and you can always break it out later and cad your own pcb! However the pic processor is a great choice since Microchip provides you with a powerful debugger and IDE for "free". Since youre running linux mplabX is what youre looking for and with the XC8 compiler. But since you couldn't find these things out you should probably go with the arduino to start with…

Sincerely