what's the difference between *a = *b and a = b

[suzee_q00]

I will go ahead and give you a little background for what I am working on, though I have been hazy on pointers for some time. I get that a pointer points to an address in memory. Today I just learned what dereferencing means (I don't think it sounds like what it does).

I am working with linked lists which are pointer intensive. I have a list and two pointers of linkedList type (they have a data section and pointer section called next) in my function, declared as:

linkedList *prev = NULL,
*curr = *head; (head is just a pointer to the first item in the linked list)
setting curr equal to the pointer at the head of my list:
I want prev and curr to go cartwheeling through my list doing whatever my hear desires.

My problem is in a while loop:
while (curr)
{
*prev = *curr; /* point prev to whatever value is stored in curr */
curr = curr -> next; /*set curr equal to the w
}
with the code like that I can compile but get a segmentation fault when I run it. At the end of my loop "curr" should point whatever was in the pointer portion of the node that "curr" was previously pointing. Which in the end should be NULL and "prev" should be whatever "curr" was before it took a long drop of the end of the list. I don't think I am trying to write to space to which I am not entitled. I have tried variations of removing the *'s (since I am not sure as to their meaning beyond the initial declarations) and get improper assignment errors.

I think I actually have two questions. First of which is why can't I just say "prev = curr;" without the *'s? The system should already know they are pointers and treat them accordingly. Second question, why am I getting a seg fault? I tried inserting a printf immediately after *prev = *curr; and that statement never prints.

Hopefully I have stated everything clearly

Thanks ever so much