tce/z extensions, libs and dep files - noob questions

[alu]

everybody has to start somewhere, and as i suggested in the forum an extension for pdftk to work in tc, i said to myself that i could try to build it as a first try ever to provide an extension. and i ran into basic problems that a noob like i am could have. so, i have a few questions regarding the build of an extension (i apologize), and i will try to make them clear at the example of pdftk (i am using tc 2.0rc1).

1. i want to build pdftk 1.41, and i have checked the dependencies of the application which are the following:

libc6 <-- we have it in the core
libgcc1 <-- i don't see the lib in the repositories
libgcj8-1 <-- i don't see the lib in the repositories
libstdc++6 <-- i don't see the lib in the repositories, instead we have libstdc++5
suggested: xpdf-utils, poppler-utils <-- does the poppler.tce/z extensions cover the needs? i don't see xpdf-utils in the repositories.

2. i can build pdftk 1.41 with the gcc-binutils since pdftk 1.41 seems to compile fine with gcc-4.2.2. and i don't see a huge problem with the procedure to build a tce/tcz extension, the wiki is clear enough to me. Nevertheless:

a. how am i supposed to deal with missing libs? do i have to download them from a debian repository (say, from Debian or Ubuntu) in order to make a .dep file?
b. what should i do with libstdc++ since we have the libstdc++5, but not the libstdc++6 without which pdftk won't work; sure, i can build pdftk 1.12 which requires libstdc++5, but i would prefer not since, in my opinion, tc should provide the last release of an application;
c. if i have to build a .dep file once i have these missing libs, how do i build this .dep file?
d. is it enough (before the testing procedure) to compile the application and to build the .dep file in order for the extension to work (if it works at all), or do i have to consider other questions (regardless of the info files etc.)?

thanks for your help

[^thehatsrule^]

1.
libgcc1 - in base
libgcj8-1 - need to install this
libstdc++6 - in base; 5 is available as an extension
xpdf-utils, poppler-utils: they might, see (all of) the poppler* and xpdf* extensions

It may be worth noting that these names vary from distro to distro.

2.
a. The best would be to build it on TC and make an extension as a dependency
b. See 1. above
c. It's a text file: see the wiki on iconmenuinfo
d. In general, following the wiki guide should be sufficient

[alu]

thanks, makes a lot of things clear. i don't find libgcj8-1 source package at the moment, but can try with pdftk 1.12

[alu]

it seems to be more difficult with pdftk than i thought. i have downladed the gcj-4.2 source from debian, but it returns an empty folder... i did find another package... so i jumped on pdfedit, and i will try with it. at the moment, i need libqt3-headers which is going to be compiled on my machine.