Thankyou very much Richard and Ian for your help!
100c100 < # if defined(i386)# if defined(i386) || defined(__ia64__)
I've made this change, and I'll include it in the next upload of labplot.
I did need to update several packages before I could get configure to run but I finally did get it to build. (Note: I just did ./configure and make -- I didn't use the debian build package) I did hit one other error which was Ineeded to install the tiff development package but configure apparently didn't catch this. I then did make install. I was able to open a labplot window but I'll have to read up more before I can go farther. This looks like it will be a great application and I plan to make use of it.
If you use debuild on the unpacked sources, it should tell you whether you have all the build-depends I am using to build labplot. Several of the libraries can be included or not, depending if you want that functionality.
It's a fairly new application and is under very active upstream development at the moment. I think it's a good alternative to things like scigraphica, which aren't being developed upstream anymore, as far as I know.
Thanks again, Helen