1. I find that the eps's generated, for whatever reason, do not automatically conform to something that Preview.app can open. it generates the error:
PostScript Conversion Error
The PostScript file "test.eps" could not be converted to a PDF file.
However, the eps's are fundamentally there. I can open them in GIMP and use ps2pdf on them.
2. My fink installed QT4 backend gives an error while trying to save a figure as PDF using the GUI. I get:
[Errno 4] Interrupted system call
Other file formats do not generate this error.
-gideon