[R-sig-Debian] Installation woes for rattle (and other packages)

[Prof. John C Nash]

Thanks to both Dirk and Paul for suggestions. Afraid I forgot to mention that my source of 
"inspiration" was the rattle page 
http://datamining.togaware.com/survivor/Install_GNU_Linux.html

where the implication (am I reading incorrectly?) is that Ubuntu and Debian would both 
"work". Truthfully, it does not surprise me at all that they don't. I was playing devil's 
advocate and taking things at face value.

Also note that my errors were generated in debian stable. I thought of using testing, but 
figure the people I advise (in government) will not use a rapidly changing version. It's a 
stretch to get them off that other OS. I'll try Karmic, which has been stated to "work".

JN