[PD] pd <--> maxmsp compatibility

[volker böhm]

hello pd-lers,
i'm a long time max user and an occasional pd-lurker.
for a programming course that is based on maxmsp, i'd like to make it  
possible for some students to follow the course using pure data. i've  
done this last year for the first time and it worked - lets say - ok.
but there was quite some confusion, partly due to my limited  
experience in pd and partly because different versions of pd  
supported a different set of objects.
i want to improve the situation a little this year and therefore have  
a view basic questions:

i guess that the most recent pd-extended version from http:// 
puredata.info/downloads is what i should tell them to use in order to  
get the most similar setup between max and pd, right?
are there any special "max<-->pd libraries" i should look out for?

very often i find myself sitting infront of a pretty trivial patching  
problem, but i just can't find the right objects names in pd.
what could i try  to find objects that perform a similar/same task as  
their max cousins, but obviously have a different name (e.g. split <-- 
 > moses)?
is there some documentation about that?

and another one:
i was looking for an "uzi" object in pd. after a lot of trial and  
error i found "kalashnikov". ok, fine.
after looking at kalashnikov help, i found that there *is* a "uzi"  
for pd - but i can't instanciate the object, if i haven't loaded  
kalashnikov at least once before.
so: starting pd, new patcher, new object, uzi --> couln'd create
but: starting pd, new patcher, new object, kalashnikov, new object,  
uzi -- does work.
what might be causing this?
(mac ppc, 10.4.11, pd extended 0.39.3)

i've tried pd-extended 0.40.3 form this site http://puredata.info/ 
downloads
when i launch this, i get a lot of errors:
cyclone: can't load library
zexy: can't load library
creb: can't load library
cxc: can't load library
...

do i need to reset some preferences?

i'll probably be back with more questions...
thanks for your attention,
volker.