Gaa! Thanks for that - I would have spent a while wondering what was going on!

I've also approached the orignal supplier of the embedded system, asking politely if they've updated their tools since the days of SuSE 7.1. They are still selling it - it's still in the price list and on their web site - but it sounds like there's a fair bit for them to do to bring it up to date.

This feels like being a long, hard, slog.

Thanks again
Richard.