stumped and impatient

[Mark M. Wilson]

I'm a new lilypond would-be user, having just installed the Debian pkg.
of lilypond from the 'testing' distribution (lilypond_1.4.12-1_i386.deb)
.
I'm really running Libranet Linux, which is mostly built on stable Deb.,
but when I tried to install the lilypond from the stable distribution, I
was informed that it was looking for libguile6, when really libguile9
already exists on my system.   So I decided to go with the ver. from
'testing.'

Anyway, I installed everything I needed, and the process concluded with
apparent success ( no dependency messages, anyway).   But when I tried
to run 'ly2div -P mynewfile.ly' I got error messages not just about my
own syntax, but similar to the following:

Analyzing twinkle.tex...
Running LaTeX...
error: latex: command exited with value 256
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/ly2dvi", line 850, in ?
    run_latex (files, outbase, extra_init)
  File "/usr/bin/ly2dvi", line 626, in run_latex
    system (cmd)
  File "/usr/bin/ly2dvi", line 234, in system
    error (msg)
  File "/usr/bin/ly2dvi", line 132, in error
    raise _ ("Exiting ... ")
Exiting ...

I even got this when I ran one of the example files "twinkle.ly"  so it
isn't just about my bad syntax, I trust.    I admit I don't know much
about latex or tetex, but when I type 'locate latex' or 'locate tetex'
in an xterm, a whole lot of files whizz by, so I think they're
installed.    If they weren't, I also think I would have gotten
dependency error messages at installation.

I hope you can help.  I'm eager to get cracking on a handbell part for a
duet w/organ I'd like to play at Xmas, and if I can learn lilypond and
print out the parts in time for someone to practice them, well that
would be just cool!
Thanks,
Mark