[Axiom-developer] Axiom compiling - newbie questions

[Martin Baker]

How do I get started modifying some of the spad code in axiom?

What I wanted to do is add exterior and inner products to the clifford code in 
Axiom.  At this stage I just want to try things out and experiment with the 
minimum of fuss. I therefore cut and pasted the spad code from the clifford 
spad code in pamphlet 10.3 into a file I created called grassman.spad. I then 
renamed all occurrences of CliffordAlgebra to GrassmanAlgebra just so that the 
names did not clash with the existing code otherwise it is the existing 
working code.

I then tried compiling it:

(1) -> )compile axiom/grassman.spad

This almost worked, it created a directory called GRAS.nrlib with some files 
in it, but there were some errors listed in it like this:

   finalizing nrlib GRAS                                
   Processing GrassmanAlgebra for Browser database:     
--------(e (% PI))---------                             
--->-->GrassmanAlgebra((e (% PI))): Unexpected HT command: \spad
"\\spad{e(n)} produces the appropriate unit element." 

I think this comes from this part of the source code:

    T ==> Join(Ring, Algebra(K), VectorSpace(K)) with
        e: PI -> %
          ++ e(n) produces the appropriate unit element.

I thought that this might be because I was using an old version of the 
compiler? So I renamed the file as: grassman.as

Then I tried this:

(1) -> )compile axiom/grassman.as
   Compiling AXIOM source code from file axiom/grassman.as using
      AXIOM-XL compiler and options
-O -Fasy -Fao -Flsp -laxiom -Mno-AXL_W_WillObsolete -DAxiom -Y $AXIOM/algebra
      Use the system command )set compiler args to change these
      options.
sh: NIL/bin/aldor: No such file or directory

I assume the axiom that I downloaded does not contain aldor?

So my questions are:
Is this the best approach to take for a Axiom newbie? Is there an easier way?
Do I need to use Aldor? Is there a binary version for opensuse? Where do I 
install it?

Note: I am using the Axiom May 2009 code for openSUSE downloaded from:
http://www.axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/download.html

Martin