Hi fellow pd users! I apologize in advance if this tutorial has been given in previous posts (although I myself was unable to find such thing), but I am so excited about the whole thing I feel like I need to share my joy with ya :-D. I finally figured out how to compile the darn Gem and make it work on RH 7. So, here's the step-by-step install instructions:
 
To install pd part, the best thing is to download Karl MacMillan's precompiled version (thanks a lot Karl!).
 
this part is self-explanatory, but knowing how it felt being a newbie (heck, I am not far from that even now :-), I'll do a quick overview of this as well:
 
(make sure you are logged in as a root or su)
 
1. Download the pd-032-PATCH*tar.gz file from Karl's site http://mambo.peabody.jhu.edu/~karlmac/download/
2. Uncompress it by typing tar -zxvf <above file-name> (this can be done in any folder, I used /Install folder located in root dir)
3. cd pd/src/ (this is a newly created dir)
4. make clean (this part is redundant but just in case something has been altered on your RH 7)
5. make install
 
You should now have pd installed (try running it by typing "pd" at the prompt)
 
NOTE: on my system I ended up moving pd executable from /usr/local/bin to /usr/lib/pd/ folder by typing:
mv /usr/local/bin/pd /usr/lib/pd/
and then created a symlink to /usr/local/bin/ in order to avoid "./bin/pd-gui not found error" (there might be a more elegant way of doing this so please correct me if that is the case). I did this second part by typing:
ln -s /usr/lib/pd/pd /usr/local/bin/pd
 
So if the above mentioned error occurred when you tried to start pd, now it should be gone. Make sure not to type ./pd though, since then pd-gui will be searched under ../bin/pd-gui (two dots in front of /bin folder) which will make cpu not find it again.
 
 
 
Now, onto the Gem install:
 
1. Download gem-0.83.tar.gz file from the Gunter Geiger's ftp (not 0.84 since that one reports that error I've been battling for over a week now :-(
 
2. Uncompress it (tar -zxvf <file-name>)
 
    2.A Copy the m_pd.h file from your pd-installation/src directory (not the /usr/lib/pd one, but the one from which you did make and make install) into the gem-0.83/src/Base/ directory overwriting the one that is already in there (I am not sure if this is necessary, since I did not try to do install without this step, but since the README says so, I made it so :-) (actually also the files differ in size, so my assumption is that it does make a difference)
 
3. cd gem-0.83/src/Gnu
4. ./makeauxlibs
5. ./configure
At this point if the cpu reports something missing (in my case that was -gltt) and fails to create makefiles, go on the www.rpmfind.net and look for "gltt" in the search box. This will "spit-out" a list of available rpm's. Download the latest package available preferrably one made for RH7 distribution, but Suse should do fine in the case RH version is not available (I forgot what file I downloaded and currently rpmfind.net is not accessible for some reason, neither are any of its mirrors, seems like my isp is acting up or something). Also, don't forget to shift-click if you're using Netscape under linux when trying to download, and install it by typing (in the folder where you have downloaded the package:
rpm -Uvh gltt*.rpm
If there are failed dependencies, (in my case there weren't any) then you should look into obtaining/updating other involved packages as well using the same process. But, if you did not tamper with your RH7 install too much, you should be fine.
 
6. try running ./configure again. This time it should go all the way.
7. This is the MOST TEDIOUS part of the whole process:
type: make
and every time your cpu reports error saying "enum Glenum was not declared" or something like that, see what file is being reported as problematic and in which folder (cpu will usually say what file has the error and at what line, and also after reporting the error it will say "leaving <foldername> folder" which will point out as to where the file is located. Go to that folder and open that file in the text-editor (I used kwrite for this purpose, but there's no "ultimate" text-editor in this case) do a search of "glenum" and wherever you find an instance within that file of "enum GLenum" ERASE the "enum" part. There's somewhere between 5-15 files that are causing this same issue in several of the folders (keep in mind that some of the files have this problem in several spots). All of these files are located in the gem-0.83/src/ subfolders. Once you are done with correcting this error in one file, always return back to gem-0.83/src/Gnu folder and try another "make," which will either bring you to completion of this step, or to another problematic file.
 
8. Once you are done with the previous step, the program should end-up spitting out Gem.pd_linux file.
type: make install (in the Gnu folder)
and your Gem install should be done!
(I did this step in a bit more "clean" way, by doing another "make clean," "make," and then "make install" once everything compiled properly, just to make sure everything compiled in a single run, and thus making sure there were no inconsistencies during the compilation due to changing of the files in the middle of the process)
 
9. Try the pd by typing (in any folder) pd -lib /usr/lib/pd/externs/Gem
This should initialize pd and load Gem library (it should give you Gem version on the terminal), so go and try one of the examples to see if it works :-).
 
That's it! Enjoy! I am sure I will :-). Great work Pd developers, this software truly rocks! For all of you on this mailing list who are not using RH7 or already have Gem up-and-running, I apologize for cluttering your mailbox with this e-mail. I just hope some of you will find this e-mail useful, so that my typing was not in vain :-). Take care all! Sincerely,
 

Ivica "Ico" Bukvic, composer
http://meowing.ccm.uc.edu/~ico/
http://bukvicrh.dyndns.org/ico/
ico@fuse.net
============================
"To be is to do" - Socrates
"To do is to be" - Sartre
"Do be do be do" - Sinatra
"Just do it!"    - NIKE

P.S. Seems that rpmfind.net is back up, so here's the file I used to install gltt: gltt-2.5-1-i386.rpm (listed under Libc6 Contribs for i386  as a Distribution version)