hmm...
i just tried everything one more time. the only thing i did differently was download the newest versions of libxml2 (2.5.11) and libxslt (1.0.33) from ftp://xmlsoft.org to recompile nsxml-1.5. after i proved it worked with the script from fifthgate, reinstalled.
everything now seems to be working as it does on any of my installations. i've been able to enable and mount packages with no problem. i still get the "no fullquery" all over the logs, but i guess those are normal as it doesn't seem to have an effect.
i guess either i botched the original libxml/xslt/nsxml stuff, or there were version problems. on a related note, i'm not sure the /tests/ files in the nsxml source work for testing. the script above did.
thanks to everyone for your time and help.
i'm so happy that it's finally up and running, i'm going to let it sit for a while and stare at it. but soon i'll go through the process again, write everything down, and make sure there is nothing to add to the various install on xxx platform docs.
