[wplug] Package grief

[Weber, Larry A]

Is it just the packages I am trying to install or are most of the
application packages for Linux difficult to install?  This week's grief is
being caused by Gnuplot.

I downloaded the source, installed GD, and made an attempt to edit term.h to
select my terminal type.  The build crashes when it cannot find vga.h.
vga.h was not included in the source package.  I grepped for vga.h in all of
the source files but cannot find an #include that refers to it.  Has anyone
successfully install gnuplot?  I am using the RH7.1 distro and an old P133
pc.  The source RPM I have is from RH.

Installing packages (applications) has been a continuous road block in my
attempt to make Linux my primary op sys.  I usually spend a significant
amount of time (days) plodding through someone's source files to get them to
install.  Even then,I succeed less than half the time.  I have made it a
rule not to even look at apps with a rev less than 1.0 and never use Beta's.

Do you think Installfests could be expanded to include package/application
installation help?  Perhaps package/application installation basics could be
considered for a GUM talk?  (It really bothers me that when I had to install
Gnuplot on a Win98 system, it took less than a minute and is worked fine the
first time.)

-laweber