I generally lurk and have followed the discussion of improving the installation of Sword for Linux. I have downloaded and distributed the Sword CD to many people in the Kansas City area and to missionaries that come through my church. As a result, I also provide technical support for them. The comment about not expecting Linux users to be as computer savvy as a few years ago is very true and will become even more so as Linux continues to develop as a desktop environment. Accordingly, one other thing worth considering is having the stable releases of Sword, GnomeSword, and BibleTime not be based on or require the latest development releases of various modules for each distribution (i.e., work out of the box or compile with the current releases of major distributions). The general user will probably set up their system, install their software, and not update their system until the next major release for their distribution is available.
My thanks to all of the developers working on Sword, GnomeSword, and BibleTime. Truly you are doing a great work. As a former developer, I do understand the efforts you are giving. Bill Caskey