Hello!
First of all... Inkscape is a fantastic product. I'm a very enthusiastic user. I just got quite frustrated in my efforts to get the latest version working for me... so my apologies for being a bit... harsh in the text below. (um... and very long in my writing)
I downloaded the inkscape-0.42.2-1.static.i686.rpm from the Inkscape download section. The RPM installed successfully (did not complain that there were any missing prerequisites). After the install "rpm -q inkscape" returned "inkscape-0.42.2-0".
When I try to run inkscape I get the following message:
inkscape: error while loading shared libraries: libpangocairo-1.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
I did a "find" on the harddrive and yes, there were indeed no libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 anywhere (not even any file with the string "pangocairo" in it).
I see two problems with this: if there were necessary software missing, why did the RPM successfully install without telling me to install other required software? Obviously, there is some other RPM I need to install (or already installed which needs to be update) or some software I need to download the source for and build, and the RPM package shoud really have refused to install in the first place.
Second problem: I decided to download the source for this libpangocairo library, only to find that it has no home page and even using Google in all possible ways, I still don't find any sensible "home page" from which I can download this. I downloaded and built both "cairo-1.0.2.tar.gz" (untar, ./configure, make, make install etc) and successfully built it and as well as the "pycairo-1.0.2.tar.gz" (untar etc etc). Still there is no libpangocairo available. And as I cannot find the homepage for this libpangocairo thing, I cannot find a safe source for any precompiled RPMs either.
(oh my God... after reviewing I realized how long the next set of paragraphs became... and how much it sounds like criticsm... :-( )
Inkscape usability is of course an important aspect and it is good it is being worked on, but between the 0.41 and 0.42 I feel that Inkscape has made a major dip in another critical aspect namely "Inkscape installability". Suddenly there is a requirement for odd libraries for Inkscape to successfully install, libraries I cannot get hold of. I understand that in order for Inscape to be a high quality product, there is a need to base it on modern software libraries. However, I find it troubling that Inkscape seem to rely on software libraries which are so cutting edge that one has to almost break ones machine in order to build/install Inkscape. Is inkscape in each and every required library dependent on features that do not exist in earlier versions of the libraries? If it is, then there is no choice than letting Inkscape RPMs and builds have those (IMHO draconian) installation/build requisites. However, if Inkscape would work fine with the set of features (and yes, set of bugs) found in some less modern (but more easily to get installed) versions of the software libraries it depends on, then going for requiring the modern versions locks out a lot of users who run on Linux installations on which it is difficult to install those modern versions of Inkscape. Users who is not THAT savvy on hunting down, downloading and installing 10+ pieces of software (RPM or source) in order to get Inkscape to run.
(I ran Redhat Advanced Server 3 before, and at time I encountered that installing Inkscape 0.40 required me to install packages which in turn had dependencies which at the end of the day required me upgrade sort of half of my RPMs!).
Sorry for ranting and sounding negative, it's simply that I really, really love this piece of software and long for that moment when I can run around among friends and workmates and evangelize about how wonderful it is and what a fantastic graphics format SVG is etc etc.... so finding that I now and then get's locked out from using it in it's latest production release is very frustrating! It makes it hard to evangelizing about it, when installing it have rather draconian requirements. Yes, I know, this is a pre-production release and yes, I've not contributed a BIT to the project, not even assisted in building those static RPMs which I were encouraged to do so I should really keep my mouth shut... (or rather, my fingers away from the keyboard).
I'm running Redhat Advanced Server 4. Think I mentioned that above BTW.
And yes, Inkscape 0.41 is a lovely product. I'm certain that 0.42 is even lovlier and yes, I will eventually get it running for me (very, very, VERY eager about testing out the new user interface to curve editing!!)
Best regards
/IlvJa