In this work we study the Ruelle Operator associated to a continuous potential defined on a countable product of a compact metric space. We prove a generalization of Bowen's criterion for the uniqueness of the eigenmeasures. One of the main results of the article is to show that a probability is DLR-Gibbs (associated to a continuous translation invariant specification), if and only if, is an eigenprobability for the transpose of the Ruelle operator. Bounded extensions of the Ruelle operator to the Lebesgue space of integrable functions, with respect to the eigenmeasures, are studied and the problem of existence of maximal positive eigenfunctions for them is considered. One of our main results in this direction is the existence of such positive eigenfunctions for Bowen's potential in the setting of a compact and metric alphabet. We also present