GNUstep fails to build on SUSE 9.2

Hi

I am trying to build GNUstep on SUSE 9.2 (virgin install with all devl 
packages installed) but it seems to me that GNUstep doesn't like SUSE, 
at least not 9.2.

If I try to use the gnustep-startup package, it complains about missing 
JPEG, TIFF and PNG libraries, which is nonsense because those libraries 
are installed and they do show up both in Yast utility or with rpm -i. 
I guess the GNUstep check is broken.

Anyway, I moved on trying to build the four basic packages (make, base, 
gui and backend) one by one and now the check for JPEG, TIFF and PNG 
libraries says "yes" when I run configure, but unfortunately it 
complains about ffcall/libffi not being present.

I cannot download ffcall because the ftp site is down and there seems 
to be no mirror, so I tried to run configure with the parameter 
--with-ffi-include but still it complains about a missing ffi library. 
This strikes me as odd because as far as I know, libffi is part of gcc, 
which I have installed (everything other than g77 and gnat).

Has anybody built GNUstep on SUSE 9.2 before? Can anybody assist please?

thanks in advance
rgds
bk