According to the documentation, all I need is Ruby and RPA.  I also installed the ruby-devel package for my distribution
in order to get rpa working.
I was using this page's advice: http://aeditor.rubyforge.org/download.html

The below errors talk about a 'mkmf.log' file.  But I can't find it.  I also don't know which switches I might want
to try passing to rpa..



# rpa update;rpa install aeditor
<snip>
# rpa update;rpa install aeditor
Getting port info from http://rpa-base.rubyforge.org/ports/ports.info.
100% [========================================] 104324 bytes

Installing ports
Getting port aeditor from http://rpa-base.rubyforge.org/ports/aeditor_1.9-1.rps.
100% [========================================] 85504 bytes
Building aeditor (1.9-1).
Building dependencies iterator fxruby.
Getting port fxruby from http://rpa-base.rubyforge.org/ports/fxruby_1.0.29-4.rps.
100% [========================================] 1524224 bytes
Building fxruby (1.0.29-4).
*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more
details.  You may need configuration options.

Provided configuration options:
        --with-opt-dir
        --without-opt-dir
        --with-opt-include
        --without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
        --with-opt-lib
        --without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
        --with-make-prog
        --without-make-prog
        --srcdir=.
        --curdir
        --ruby=/usr/bin/ruby
        --with-fox-dir
        --without-fox-dir
        --with-fox-include
        --without-fox-include=${fox-dir}/include
        --with-fox-lib
        --without-fox-lib=${fox-dir}/lib
        --with-fxscintilla-dir
        --without-fxscintilla-dir
        --with-fxscintilla-include
        --without-fxscintilla-include=${fxscintilla-dir}/include
        --with-fxscintilla-lib
        --without-fxscintilla-lib=${fxscintilla-dir}/lib
Error: ruby extconf.rb failed aborting
/usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rpa/helper.rb:139:in `build_extension': ruby extconf.rb failed (RuntimeError)
        from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rpa/helper.rb:134:in `chdir'
        from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rpa/helper.rb:134:in `build_extension'
        from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rpa/helper.rb:145:in `build_extension'
        from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rpa/helper.rb:144:in `each'
        from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rpa/helper.rb:144:in `build_extension'
        from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rpa/helper.rb:128:in `run'
        from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rpa/helper.rb:126:in `each'
        from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rpa/helper.rb:126:in `run'
         ... 23 levels...
        from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rpa/frontend.rb:27:in `initialize'
        from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rpa/rpafrontend.rb:34:in `initialize'
        from /usr/bin/rpa:12:in `new'
        from /usr/bin/rpa:12