file not found - hardware, fs, or driver problem?

[Richard Lyons <richard@the-place.net>]

I've been away from this list for a while, so: hello everybody.  It's
nice to be back.

I've installed sarge on a new box but i am getting strange 'file not
found' errors.  Not sure whether to suspect hardware or hardware
drivers.  Or something else.

The setup is:
   cpu:  AMD64 Athlon 3200+
    mb: Asrock 939NF4
   mem: 2GB DDR400 PC3200
   hdd: 200GB SATA Maxtor 6L200M0 - which is recognised as /dev/sda
   opt: 16x Sony DW-Q30 DVD-RW
   vid: Nvidia 6600GT 256MB PCI-E

There is also an old ethernet PCI card and an old SoundBlaster Live PCI
Card, recycled from another box, as the onboard audio controller,
ethernet port and modem, all NVidia MCP51 AC97 are invisible to Debian.

The install went reasonably smoothly, once I had chanced on a hdd driver
that loaded (It was not any of the drivers called 'SATA_xxx' to my
surprise).  The nv driver works the video card adequately, though I
believe I should undertake what looks like a rather complex process to
install a better proprietary driver. (I previously tried and failed to
install an ATI X700, but that is another story.)

The problem is that installed software sometimes refuses to run, giving
'file not found', in spite of the fact that the file in question will ls
normally, permissions are ok, etc, and I can even cat the file.  This
happens only with certain files, for example two separate attempts to
install qcad professional.  Other software, loaded via normal Debian
routes, runs apparently normally.

Any suggestions to how to proceed?

TIA

--
richard