DocBook, sgml, whatever...

[Jeremy Jones <jeremy samnjack com>]

Hello alls,

Forgive me for sounding either stupid or a little frustrated...  I'm
more than likely both.

I use a linux distro called CRUX -- not a big-time distribution, just
ships with the basics.  It uses a simple packaging system for software
management -- basically a script that downloads source, passes configure
options, and builds .tar.gz files.  There's no dependency checking, or
anything like that.  I've been working for over a month on building a
collection of Gnome 2 ports for crux.  I now have a reasonably
well-assembeled collection.  The only thing that's still giving me
trouble is docbook.  This docbook stuff has caused me more grief than
anything else.

All I want to do is install Gnome 2 without using that
--enable-gtk-doc=no configure option on every other package.  I _DO NOT_
want to become an expert on sgml, xml, or docbook-dtd stuff.  However, I
have found no simple, task-oriented documentation on how to get the
docbook/sgml prerequisites for gnome 2 setup properly.  I have installed
docbook-sgml-3.0.0, 3.1.0, 4.0.0, and 4.1.0; docbook-xml-4.1.2;
sgmltools-lite; docbook-dsssl; docbook-xsl; sgml-common; gtk-doc;
openjade; and opensp.  

Openjade, opensp, sgmltools-lite, and gtk-doc are latest releases. 
Docbook things are mostly stolen from RedHat RPMS.  I've verified (to
the best of my meager abilities) that my catalogs are set up properly.

So, here's what happens when, for instance I try to compile GConf w/out
the dreaded --enable-gtk-doc=no option:

<moving along just fine... then...>
*** Building HTML ***
rm -rf ./html 
mkdir ./html
cd ./html && gtkdoc-mkhtml gconf ../gconf.sgml
jade:../gconf.sgml:1:59:W: cannot generate system identifier for public
text "-//Davenport//DTD DocBook V3.0//EN"
jade:../gconf.sgml:14:0:E: reference to entity "BOOK" for which no
system identifier could be generated 
jade:../gconf.sgml:1:0: entity was defined here
jade:../gconf.sgml:14:0:E: DTD did not contain element declaration for
document type name
jade:../gconf.sgml:15:9:E: there is no attribute "ID"
jade:../gconf.sgml:15:16:E: element "BOOK" undefined
jade:../gconf.sgml:16:11:E: element "BOOKINFO" undefined
jade:../gconf.sgml:17:16:E: element "AUTHORGROUP" undefined
jade:../gconf.sgml:18:13:E: element "AUTHOR" undefined
jade:../gconf.sgml:19:11:E: element "FIRSTNAME" undefined
jade:../gconf.sgml:20:9:E: element "SURNAME" undefined
jade:../gconf.sgml:21:13:E: element "AFFILIATION" undefined
<...etc...until...>
/usr/bin/gtkdoc-mkhtml: index.sgml: No such file or directory

Yes, I've looked through my (hediously opaque) chain of catalog files,
and I do have things that say "-//Davenport/DTD DocBook V3.0//EN" and so
on.  

I guess what I'd really like is one of two things:

either 1) A simple .tar file with a working set of docbook dtd stuff. 
Something that people compiling from source don't need to worry about,
that'll chuck all the necessary files and catalogs in the right
directories, and let them move on to working with gnome.

or 2) A set of instructions like:  "download such-and-such from
so-and-so and extract it in /this/directory/; next, download
this-other-thing from some-other-place and extract it in
/another/directory..."

Does anyone know if either of my two prayers have been answered already?

Or should I shut up and deal with the --enable-gtk-doc=no thing...

If anyone is interested in helping me out, they can find a tarball of
all my docbook-dtd and docbook-stylesheets w/catalogs at:

http://www.samnjack.com/cruxcrud/files/docbook/docbook-dtd.tar.gz

Thanks a million,
Jeremy Jones