In order to successfully use Kwave, you need:
a computer running Linux (Kwave might also run under some other operating system, but we have never tested this, please let us know if you get it working under some other platform / operating system)
working sound playback (not really required for using but what would you do with a sound editor if you can't hear the result of your work?)
KDE-2.2.1 or higher (at least the libraries, if you are a gnome fan, you can also run Kwave if the proper libs are installed).
about 10 MB memory for starting Kwave (but this may vary depending on your platform and configuration)
If you intend to compile Kwave from the sources, you will also need:
A C/C++ compiler. GCC-2.95.3 works fine, some older and any newer version should work too. (Note: gcc-3.0 is not yet supported, it wil not work!)
The glibc2 (libc-6) development environment. On SuSE systems the package is called "libc", on other systems it might be called "libc-devel".
The KDE2 development environment: "kdelibs-devel", "kdemultimedia-devel", "kdesdk-2".
The Qt development environment, the package is normally called "qt-devel" or similar.
If you intend to use CVS, you will also need a current cvs package.