when I install sword from the package manager it just works.

Sword works fine, It's the Devotional I'm having trouble with.

The devotionals work fine when the whole thing is installed from the
repositories. Do yourself a favour and always check there before installing
anything. One of the few exceptions is virtualbox where the version on
Oracle's website is more advanced.

I think you will find the repository version of Sword is the answer you are
seeking.

To install modules open Xiphos and go to Edit, Module Manager. Add modules
using it. Go to Install/Update. Check the box and hit install. I prefer
Bibletime. It uses the same modules and it is easier to use.

I install from the repositories and encountered no problems. I have
several Daily Devotionals, including Spurgeon's Morning and Evening,
several Commentaries and translations installed, (including 2 Greek
Testaments which display in very clear Greek characters).

Did you install from the repositories? I used Synaptic. It sounds like
you may have used another, more dangerous method!

The installation walks one through the process of downloading and
installing from a very large selection of Bibles etc. It's all very
easy to follow and automatically sets everything up ready to use. One
little quirk: when reading Spurgeon's Morning and Evening you have to
manually input the current month and date just above the text to
start; from then on you can click on the down arrow to advance to the
next day.

If you have any other issues let me know.

I downloaded it from Crosswire.org. I checked Synoptic , and Ubuntu Software
Center, and all they had was Spurgeon's Treasury of David.

The way it works is - install Xiphos from the repositories using
Synaptic. During the install it asks you something like, "do you want
to install Bibles, etc. now" and when you say OK it presents you with
a window with the available sources. Agree to that and it eventually
brings up a list of books in several categories. One of them, as I
recall it, is "Daily Devotionals" or similar and when expanded (click
on the little right pointing arrow and when it points down you see the
books). Spurgeon's Morning and Evening is called (rather cryptically!)
"SME". You can select as many items as you want and when you click on
OK (or similar) at the bottom they are installed.

You can always add or subtract using the Module Manager, which is
found on the Edit menu. This is how I got "SME" and it seems fully
functional and complete.

You don't need either Synaptic or to go to the Crosswire site. Just use
Xiphos to download and install them for you. It does all of the work for you
and there is more to choose from.

Yes that did work. I did just download this system so I do not know how to
use this yet. The devotional is installed but when I go to the left column
marked Biblical Text and go down to Daily Devotional, high light it and
click/double click on it nothing happenes. What am I doing wrong?