diff -ruN moodle-vanila/config-dist.php moodle/config-dist.php
--- moodle-vanila/config-dist.php	2006-09-10 20:25:02.000000000 -0600
+++ moodle/config-dist.php	2007-02-06 14:48:23.000000000 -0700
@@ -287,6 +287,21 @@
 // NOTE: if you are using custompix in your theme, see /fixpix.php.
 
 //=========================================================================
+// ASPELL fixes 
+//=========================================================================
+// Use PHP built-in pspell bindings:
+// $CFG->pspell=<bool>
+//
+$CFG->pspell=false;
+
+//
+// Use fixes specific to RedHat AS3 (or other distribution
+// running older version of aspell
+// $CFG->redhatas3aspellfix=<bool>
+//
+$CFG->redhatas3aspellfix=false;
+
+//=========================================================================
 // ALL DONE!  To continue installation, visit your main page with a browser
 //=========================================================================
 if ($CFG->wwwroot == 'http://example.com/moodle') {
@@ -308,6 +323,8 @@
     }
     die;
 }
+
+
 // MAKE SURE WHEN YOU EDIT THIS FILE THAT THERE ARE NO SPACES, BLANK LINES,
 // RETURNS, OR ANYTHING ELSE AFTER THE TWO CHARACTERS ON THE NEXT LINE.
 ?>
diff -ruN moodle-vanila/lib/adminlib.php moodle/lib/adminlib.php
--- moodle-vanila/lib/adminlib.php	2007-02-05 19:20:04.000000000 -0700
+++ moodle/lib/adminlib.php	2007-02-06 13:27:25.000000000 -0700
@@ -1855,6 +1855,8 @@
 
 }
 
+include_once("speller/server-scripts/aspell_pspell.php");
+
 class admin_setting_special_editordictionary extends admin_setting_configselect {
 
     function admin_setting_special_editordictionary() {
@@ -1878,43 +1880,47 @@
 //        error_reporting(E_ALL); // for debug, final version shouldn't have this...
         clearstatcache();
 
-        // If aspellpath isn't set don't even bother ;-)
-        if (empty($CFG->aspellpath)) {
-            return 'Empty aspell path!';
-        }
-
-        // Do we have access to popen function?
-        if (!function_exists('popen')) {
-            return 'Popen function disabled!';
-        }
-
-        $cmd          = $CFG->aspellpath;
-        $output       = '';
-        $dictionaries = array();
-        $dicts        = array();
-
-        if(!($handle = @popen(escapeshellarg($cmd) .' dump dicts', 'r'))) {
-            return 'Couldn\'t create handle!';
-        }
-
-        while(!feof($handle)) {
-            $output .= fread($handle, 1024);
-        }
-        @pclose($handle);
-
-        $dictionaries = explode(chr(10), $output);
-
-        // Get rid of possible empty values
-        if (is_array($dictionaries)) {
-
-            $cnt = count($dictionaries);
-
-            for ($i = 0; $i < $cnt; $i++) {
-                if (!empty($dictionaries[$i])) {
-                    $dicts[$dictionaries[$i]] = $dictionaries[$i];
-                }
-            }
-        }
+	if($CFG->pspell || $CFG->redhatas3aspellfix){
+		$dictionaries=aspell_dict_list();
+	} else {
+		// If aspellpath isn't set don't even bother ;-)
+		if (empty($CFG->aspellpath)) {
+		    return 'Empty aspell path!';
+		}
+
+		// Do we have access to popen function?
+		if (!function_exists('popen')) {
+		    return 'Popen function disabled!';
+		}
+
+		$cmd          = $CFG->aspellpath;
+		$output       = '';
+		$dictionaries = array();
+		$dicts        = array();
+
+		if(!($handle = @popen(escapeshellarg($cmd) .' dump dicts', 'r'))) {
+		    return 'Couldn\'t create handle!';
+		}
+
+		while(!feof($handle)) {
+		    $output .= fread($handle, 1024);
+		}
+		@pclose($handle);
+
+		$dictionaries = explode(chr(10), $output);
+
+        }
+	// Get rid of possible empty values
+	if (is_array($dictionaries)) {
+
+	    $cnt = count($dictionaries);
+
+	    for ($i = 0; $i < $cnt; $i++) {
+		if (!empty($dictionaries[$i])) {
+		    $dicts[$dictionaries[$i]] = $dictionaries[$i];
+		}
+	    }
+	}
 
         if (count($dicts) >= 1) {
             return $dicts;
diff -ruN moodle-vanila/lib/speller/server-scripts/aspell_pspell.php moodle/lib/speller/server-scripts/aspell_pspell.php
--- moodle-vanila/lib/speller/server-scripts/aspell_pspell.php	1969-12-31 17:00:00.000000000 -0700
+++ moodle/lib/speller/server-scripts/aspell_pspell.php	2007-02-06 12:50:48.000000000 -0700
@@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
+<?php
+
+function aspell_dict_list(){
+//  Function for graceful fetching aspell 
+//  dictionaries list
+    $f=fopen('/usr/share/pspell/region-to-spelling.map','r');
+    if(!$f) {
+      error_handler("Couldn't create handle!");
+      exit;
+    }
+    $buf=array();
+    while(!feof($f)){
+     $buf[]=fgetss($f,4096);
+    }
+    fclose($f);
+    $filtered=preg_grep('/^\s*#/',$buf,PREG_GREP_INVERT);
+    $dict_map=array();
+    foreach ($filtered as $s){
+     $a=preg_split("/\s/",$s);
+     // echo "'$s'";
+     if(!empty($s)){$dict_map[$a[0]]=$a[1];}
+     // echo $a[0];
+    }
+    $dicts=array_keys($dict_map);
+    return $dicts;
+}
+
+class spell_checker {
+
+   var $personal_path = "/path/to/personal_dict/";
+   var $skip_len      = 3;
+   var $mode = PSPELL_NORMAL;
+
+   var $pspell_handle;
+   var $pspell_cfg_handle;
+   var $personal = false;
+
+   function spell_checker($dict = "en", $pconfig = "") {
+
+      $pspell_cfg_handle = pspell_config_create($dict);
+
+      pspell_config_ignore($pspell_cfg_handle,$this->skip_len);
+      pspell_config_mode($pspell_cfg_handle, $this->mode);
+
+      if($pconfig != "") {
+         $pspell_handle = pspell_config_personal($pspell_cfg_handle, $personal_path.$pconfig.".pws");
+         $personal = true;
+      }
+      $this->pspell_handle = pspell_new_config($pspell_cfg_handle);
+   }
+
+   function check($word) {
+      return pspell_check($this->pspell_handle, $word);
+   }
+
+   function suggest($word) {
+      return pspell_suggest($this->pspell_handle, $word);
+   }
+
+   function add($word) {
+      if(!$personal) return false;
+      return pspell_add_to_personal($this->pspell_handle, $word);
+   }
+
+   function close() {
+      if(!$personal) return;
+      return pspell_save_wordlist($this->pspell_handle);
+   }
+
+};
+
+?>
diff -ruN moodle-vanila/lib/speller/server-scripts/spellchecker.php moodle/lib/speller/server-scripts/spellchecker.php
--- moodle-vanila/lib/speller/server-scripts/spellchecker.php	2006-09-30 20:01:28.000000000 -0600
+++ moodle/lib/speller/server-scripts/spellchecker.php	2007-02-06 13:27:01.000000000 -0700
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 <?php // $Id: spellchecker.php,v 1.8 2006/09/30 16:07:43 julmis Exp $
     include_once("../../../config.php");
+require("aspell_pspell.php");
     require_login();
 
 header('Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
@@ -19,13 +20,18 @@
     exit;
 }
 
-$aspell_opts = '-a -H --lang='. $lang .' --encoding=utf-8';
+if($CFG->redhatas3aspellfix ){
+ $aspell_opts = '-a -H --lang='. $lang;
+} else { 
+ $aspell_opts = '-a -H --lang='. $lang .' --encoding=utf-8';
+}
 if (!empty($CFG->aspellextradicts)) {   // eg /usr/bin/.aspell.en.pws
     $aspell_opts .= ' --add-extra-dicts='.$CFG->aspellextradicts;
 }
 $tempfiledir = $CFG->dataroot; // Use dataroot since it must be writable
 $input_separator = 'A';
 
+
 function check_language($cmd) {
 /// return users current language if its
 /// dictionary is found installed in system
@@ -40,17 +46,23 @@
     $current_lang = current_language();
     $output = '';
 
-    if(!($handle = popen($cmd .' dump dicts', 'r'))) {
-        error_handler("Couldn't create handle!");
-        exit;
-    }
+    if ( $CFG->pspell || $CFG->redhatas3aspellfix ) {
+      $dicts=aspell_dict_list();
+    } else {
+      $handle = @popen(escapeshellarg($cmd) .' dump dicts', 'r');
+      if(!$handle) {
+          error_handler("Couldn't create handle!");
+          exit;
+      }
+  
+      while(!feof($handle)) {
+          $output .= fread($handle, 1024);
+      }
+      @pclose($handle);
+  
+      $dicts = explode(chr(10), strtolower($output));
 
-    while(!feof($handle)) {
-        $output .= fread($handle, 1024);
     }
-    @pclose($handle);
-
-    $dicts = explode(chr(10), strtolower($output));
 
     if(is_array($dicts)) {
         if(in_array($current_lang,$dicts)) {
@@ -66,6 +78,12 @@
 
 }
 
+function normalize_text($t){
+    // echo $t;
+    $ret=stripslashes(strip_tags(preg_replace('/\></',"> <",urldecode($t))));
+    // echo $ret;
+    return $ret;
+}
 // set the JavaScript variable to the submitted text.
 // textinputs is an array, each element corresponding to the (url-encoded)
 // value of the text control submitted for spell-checking
@@ -73,7 +91,11 @@
     global $textinputs;
     foreach( $textinputs as $key=>$val ) {
         // $val = str_replace( "'", "%27", $val );
-        echo "textinputs[$key] = decodeURIComponent(\"" . $val . "\");\n";
+        $t=normalize_text($val);
+        $t=html_entity_decode(urldecode($val));
+        $t=$val;
+        echo "textinputs[$key] = decodeURIComponent(\"" . $t . "\");\n";
+        // echo "textinputs[$key] = \"" . $t . "\";\n";
     }
 }
 
@@ -116,6 +138,56 @@
 
 // get the list of misspelled words. Put the results in the javascript words array
 // for each misspelled word, get suggestions and put in the javascript suggs array
+
+function print_checker_results_pspell() {
+
+    global $aspell_prog;
+    global $aspell_opts;
+    global $tempfiledir;
+    global $textinputs;
+    global $input_separator;
+    global $lang;
+
+    // regexp to nuke HTML tags in input
+    // handles cases when tags are spanning across 2 lines
+    // gets more tricky with more line spanning...
+    // Full HTML filter would be:
+    //  $noHTML_re=array("/(<[^<>]+>)|(^[^<>]+>)|(<[^<>]+$)/"=>"","/(&#.{3})|(&\w+\;)/"=>"");
+    // However if we're spanning tags across lines it's safer to use
+    // built-in strip_tags and clean-up entities manually:
+    // $noHTML_re=array("/(&#.{3})|(&\w+\;)/"=>"");
+    $dicts=aspell_dict_list();
+    $sc=new spell_checker($lang);
+
+    $index=0;
+    $text_input_index=-1;
+    for( $i = 0; $i < count( $textinputs ); $i++ ) {
+         $text=normalize_text($textinputs[$i]);
+         // echo "'$text'";
+         $lines = explode( "\n", $text );
+         $text_input_index++;
+         print_textindex_decl($text_input_index);
+         foreach($lines as $line){
+             // $clean_line=preg_replace(array_keys($noHTML_re),array_values($noHTML_re),$line);
+             $clean_line=html_entity_decode($line,ENT_COMPAT);
+             $words = split("[^[:alpha:]']+", $clean_line);
+             foreach($words as $word){
+                 if(!$sc->check($word)){
+                     // word is misspelled
+                     print_words_elem($word,$index,$text_input_index);
+                     $suggs=$sc->suggest($word);
+                     if(empty($suggs)){$suggs=array();}
+                     print_suggs_elem($suggs,$index,$text_input_index);
+                     $index++;
+                 } // we're not catching delimiters and errors from aspell
+                   // like original did... hopefuly it wouldn't hurt
+                
+             }
+         }
+    }
+}
+
+
 function print_checker_results() {
 
     global $aspell_prog;
@@ -186,7 +258,7 @@
     }
 
     // close temp file, delete file
-    unlink( $tempfile );
+    // unlink( $tempfile );
 }
 
 
@@ -205,7 +277,11 @@
 
 print_textinputs_var();
 
-print_checker_results();
+if ( $CFG->pspell ) {
+ print_checker_results_pspell();
+} else {
+ print_checker_results();
+}
 
 ?>
 
diff -ruN moodle-vanila/lib/speller/wordWindow.js moodle/lib/speller/wordWindow.js
--- moodle-vanila/lib/speller/wordWindow.js	2004-08-21 04:12:09.000000000 -0600
+++ moodle/lib/speller/wordWindow.js	2007-02-06 12:04:31.000000000 -0700
@@ -216,6 +216,9 @@
 }
 
 function printForHtml( n ) {
+	// DIMON HACK
+	// we don't need to post-process so that we have WYSIWYG
+	return n;
 	var htmlstr = n;
 	if( htmlstr.length == 1 ) {
 		// do simple case statement if it's just one character