Problem with installing scilab-3.1.1-2.2.el4.rf.i386.rpm

[Enrico Segre]

Apparently libvte.so.4 is provided by older vte packages, like

http://fr2.rpmfind.net//linux/RPM/ASP/i386/updates/10.1/i386/vte-0.11.11-12.el4.i386.html

(assuming that you're on i386, which perhaps is not the case)

vte-0.14.0-2.el5 provides libvte.so.9

Anyway, if you have the freedom of using el5 packages (you're not
limited to el4), why don't you try with a more recent version of scilab?
e.g.

http://fr2.rpmfind.net//linux/RPM/dag/redhat/el4/i386/scilab-4.0-1.el4.rf.i386.html

or even better, why don't you build from sources? For scilab 4.1.2 you
don't need too many prerequisites, see
http://wiki.scilab.org/Compilation_of_Scilab 

Enrico