Lisp on Debian

[Daniel C.]

I'm trying to get emacs, slime, and some thread-and-unicode-supporting
common lisp implementation running on my Debian box, and I'm running
into some problems.  I've been able to get everything installed and
(mostly) running, but even the most working combination of things I've
tried has complained when I launched slime.  Even Lisp in a Box is
complaining.

And so, battered and broken, I turn to you for help.  Anyone have any advice?

Dan