Amaya on LINUX-ELF ; startup problem

I downloaded the Amaya Alpha Release 0.8b to a Linux ELF system
(ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1, stripped)
in directory /usr/local/Amaya as suggested.  The distribution unpacked
into about 1.7M.  When I try to execute the binary using the 'amaya'
command in /usr/local/Amaya/bin, the script executes fine and the
THOTDIR variable gets set properly, but the 'amayamain' program simply
returns without (apparently) doing anything: no window, no error msgs,
exit status 0.  Everything is set OK: $DISPLAY is fine, and ldd reports
no missing libraries.  Please advise...
-- 
Timothy Fossum -- Computer Science and Engineering Dept. -- UW-Parkside
900 Wood Road -- Kenosha, WI 53144 -- fossum@cs.uwp.edu -- 414-595-2297