Steve,
Somebody else had similar problems so I decided to try the binary
version myself & had the same problem. As near as I can tell, the
file etc/front.end in the distribution is corrupt. I put our
etc/front.end binary on moon.cecer.army.mil (grass/incoming/front.end.sgi)
for now. If you ftp it, chmod a+x, and replace your corrupt one, I
think it will work. I'll send the ftp site administrator a copy of this
so they can correct it in the distribution. Let me know if this works.
Bill B