Guile 1.8.2 / SLIB 3a4 incompatibility

[Bryce L Nordgren]

1st: I don't know anything about Scheme.  Scheme/SLIB is required for GnuCash which has ~4 years of my books in it.  I do however have a decade or so of C/C++/Java/Python/Linux Admin experience.

Problem #1: README contains incorrect SLIB install instructions.  Running "guile-config info pkgdatadir" returns '/root/my-applications/share/guile' (Financial constraints have pushed me back to a Pentium MMX on which I'm running puppylinux.  Wife took the good computer to school.  Will deal with "root" use later.)  However, according to the info file, the correct directory is '/root/my-applications/share/guile/site'.  So...which is correct?  Info file or README.

Problem #2: With SLIB 3a4 installed in either directory above, I get: 
> guile> (use-modules (ice-9 slib))
> ERROR: Unbound variable: slib:features
> ABORT: (unbound-variable)
> guile>

Instructions at the end of the "info" file say:

 If instead you get an error such as:

          Unbound variable: scheme-implementation-type

     then a solution is to get a newer version of Guile, or to modify
     `ice-9/slib.scm' to use `define-public' for the offending
     variables.

Yes I searched for problem reports and found this w.r.t. Guile 1.8.1 and Slib 3a4:
http://osdir.com/ml/lisp.guile.bugs/2006-11/msg00010.html
 
After editing according to the instructions and replacing the slib.scm file in the ice-9 directory, out pops a page full of error messages that nothing in this life has prepared me to parse.