I recently installed Squeeze, installed several applications via the package manager and almost universally, the help menus don't function. Flash is installed and works for Iceweasal, at least I can watch a youtube vid.

Anybody have a clue as what is required?

When you say, "Don't function", do you mean they are greyed out, when you click on them nothing happens, or there is no help file installed? Sometimes you must manually install the help package for a program. There is also a common help browser. Try launching 'synaptic', and search in it for the packages you require.

No, the menu button Help is there and the items in the pull-down menu are there (not greyed) and the files are installed. The act of clicking on the item in the help pull-down menus performs no function. the tutorial or manual or documents or demo - do not appear/pop-up/etc...

I can drill down in the folders and find the help files on some of these applications and read them page at a time, out of sequence. I just can't figure out what's missing so that they can be viewed as meant. All associated document files have been installed and the few 'man' pages I've tried from cli seem to work.

I'm trying to figure out what is the common method application developers use to display help info and get that feature working.

Just finished several days worth of downloading updates. Takes awhile when all you got is a crappy low bandwidth connection. Some dependency issue got resolved and the Help features seem to work now. Strange the dvd's didn't install this.