so if I am mining on a cpu,do I need another miner or can I get cgminer to work?
You're probably better off finding another miner. I'd look into mining a cpu-mined alternative currency like Primecoin or a scrypt coin. If you really want to work with Bitcoin only, you might be able to find a version of jgarzik's (I think) old cpu miner, though I don't know if it will work with any of the current pools.