docbook 4.5 install. Woefully hard?

[Dave Pawson <davep@dpawson.co.uk>]

I've recently had an email conversation with a fairly experienced
software developer trying to get a full docbook setup from scratch.
He wasn't impressed with the list of bits he had to collect.

<quote>
I am still stuggling on.

The fundamental problem is that you need several things to play togther

     1) xml validator
     2) A docbook DTD
     3) Some xsl stylesheets (why are they called stylesheets and not 
programs?)
     4) something to turn xml+xsl into xsl-fo
     5) something to turn xsl-fo into pdf
     6) an OS

If there are
    4 choices for  1)
    2 choices for  2)
    1 choice for    3)
    3 choices for 4)
    3 choices for  5)
    3 choices for 6)

Then their are  216 possible configurations.
</quote>

I'm talking about the schemas, validation tools, stylesheets, catalogs
parsers etc.

For docbook 4.5 I think such a  list is:

DTDs
Latest stylesheets
validator (xmllint from Daniel?)*
xslt 1.0 libxslt?*
fop

* Since it has catalog support

Is that complete please?
Any simpler suggestions?
I have a java alternative, I'll post that separately.
I'll also do one for dbook v5.


My temptation is to 'start afresh' rather than accept
an existing install on Linux, since it will work
from windows and the user will know where stuff is kept!


TIA







regards

-- 
Dave Pawson
XSLT XSL-FO FAQ.
http://www.dpawson.co.uk