Scilab error 998

[Proton Soup]

hi. i just installed Scilab via the Add/Remove programs interface of an Ubuntu Hardy Heron. install appeared to go OK, but when i type help at the command prompt in Scilab, i get


Can't go to directory /usr/lib/scilab-4.1.2/man/eng/programming
!--error 998
chdir: Internal Error

(...etc)


hopefully no errors there because i couldn't copy the text and typed that in.

also, a little window pops up labelled 'Scilab Progression Bar' that says 'Parsing help files', yet it never seems to finish parsing.

if i look in /usr/lib/scilab-4.1.2/ , there is indeed no /man directory.

i am a bit new to all of this, but i assume that maybe scilab is trying to do some additional configuration that falls under what Ubuntu considers program installation, yet the privileges that i entered password for at installation no longer exist? any clues on how i can go about fixing this?

TIA

[Proton Soup]

ok, so i submitted a bug report at scilab and was informed that this is an ubuntu error. resolution was


It is not a bug of Scilab, it is ubuntu related. Install the doc package
please:
# aptitude install scilab-doc

but i used "sudo apt-get install scilab-doc" instead and it seems to work now.

searching for scilab-doc, i then find this thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=166857) and it seems to be a known problem with the package manager?

also, looking at this error here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3473349#post3473349) and its response (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4723143&postcount=21), i tried initiating Scilab from the Konsole and also got
/usr/bin/scilab: 28: /usr/lib/pvm3//lib/pvmgetarch: not found

which i fixed by installing pvm as r4e suggested.


so, i'm not even sure this is all correct or complete, but it seems we need at a minimum:

$ sudo apt-get install scilab scilab-doc pvm

how do i go about verifying this and what is the process to get the package amended to save others from suffering?

actually, maybe scratch pvm. if it's this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_Virtual_Machine , then it's more like an additional package that most users will never use, and the scilab command line "error" is just an annoyance. but not including scilab-doc is silly, it really ought to be in there.