Docbook XHTML generation with tidy, chapter the first

So I'm getting the new version of the MaxDB FAQ ready for production. We used Microsoft Word to create the document and manage corrections. And then I exported to HTML. Word did a terrific (note that the root word here is "terror") job of translating to HTML, and Tidy won't touch it unless I fix some issues manually.

So here I go.

Getting most recent build from cvs:

$ cd ~/src/
$ cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/tidy login
$ cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/tidy co tidy

Building said code:

$ cd tidy/build/gmake
$ make

ld: archive: ../../lib/libtidy.a has no table of contents, add one with ranlib(1) (can't load from it)
make: *** [../../bin/tidy] Error 1

$ ranlib ../../lib/libtidy.a
$ make

Running code:

$ cd ../../bin
$ ./tidy -h
$ open ../htmldoc/faq.html
$ open http://tidy.sourceforge.net/docs/quickref.html

More after I eat some food.