launching gnome-session fails

[Carl Hartshorn <carl mips com>]

Garnome works great and builds a gnome desktop in abt 2-hrs. However, when I try 
to use the newly built gnome version, I get:

Could not resolve the address
"xml:readonly:/gconf.xml.mandatory"
in the config file /home/carl/garnome/etc/gconf/2/path" failed
could not make '/gconf.xml.mandatory'
permission denied.

I'm not surprised at the last line, I built garnome as 'user'. I think that is 
allowed.
DocBook is installed and working AFAIK.
Anybody know what I did or didnot do?
TIA
Carl Hartshorn