serious dependency problems

[sam rosenfeld <sam@wdn.com>]

I have tried unsuccessfully to install many packages and programs -- from math  
programs to pine, sawfish and libc6.2.  In most cases the problem is one in
which the 'make' closes with errors that list dependencies it could not find.  
Occasionally, and perhaps unrelated, the error message reads something like:
expecting "fil2" and could not find the file. I take this to mean that the make 
program was not satisfied with an earlier version.  The dpkg -i and apt-get 
install gives me similar problems.  I am using Debian2.2r2 on a more-or-less
standard box (AMD 400Mz chip, only linux 2.2.20, etc.)

What's the best remedy?

Thanks,

sam