For the time being, Sparks! on Linux is going to have to remain our underprivilged child. Why? Because wxPython (the GUI application toolkit we are using) does not provide a very functional HTML widget for that platform. On Windows, we are embeding Internet Explorer using an Active X control. On Macintosh, we are using a Safari control (experimental in nature, but soon to get much better).

On Linux, there was a project called wxMozilla to bring Mozilla into wxWidgets as a standard control. Although the project appears to be abandoned I decided to spend 48 hours seeing if I could make it work. Alas, no. If anyone wants to help out, please get in touch. Here's what we were using (in pretty much the order they need to be compiled):

• RedHat Fedora Core 3
• Python 2.3.4
• glib-2.6.1
• atk-1.9.0
• pango-1.8.0
• gtk+-2.6.1
• wxWidgets from CVS (2005.02.02; post 2.5.3.1). This successfully builds a wxPython installation on our Linux development machine.
• mozilla from CVS (2005.02.01). This successfully builds a Mozilla browser.
• wxMozilla-0.5.3. This fails even in the simplest demo program. The problem may lie in how GTK 2 needs to be initialized.