gnome-libs + Debian = chokes!

[Erik Andersen <andersen inconnect com>]

I have Debian installed -- using the latest from frozen with a small
sprinkling of stuff from unstable. I do not have any of the gnome .debs
installed, but I do have:
    libglib1.1.5
    libglib1.1.5-dev
    libgtk1.1.5
    libgtk1.1.5-dev
    imlib 1.8.1 (several .debs)
    autoconf 2.12
    automake 1.3
    libtool 1.2
from debian unstable.  Using these, when I attempt to build
gnome-libs I get a wierd error when trying to run the configure 
script.  I run ./autogrn.sh, and it goes through all the normal
tests, but when it tries to make the makefiles, it chokes:

checking for working ORBit environment... (cached) yes
creating ./config.status
creating Makefile
sed: file conftest.s2 line 40: Unterminated `s' command
./config.status: line 1: 25905 Broken pipe             sed -f conftest.s1
     25906 Done(1)                 | sed -f conftest.s2
./config.status: line 319: 25903 Broken pipe             sed -e "$ac_comsub
s%@configure_input@%$configure_input%g
s%@srcdir@%$srcdir%g
s%@top_srcdir@%$top_srcdir%g
s%@INSTALL@%$INSTALL%g
" $ac_file_inputs
     25904 Done(1)                 | ( eval "$ac_sed_cmds" )>$ac_file
creating po/Makefile.in
sed: file conftest.s2 line 40: Unterminated `s' command
./config.status: line 1: 25928 Broken pipe             sed -f conftest.s1
     25929 Done(1)                 | sed -f conftest.s2
creating intl/Makefile
[-----many more similar errors omitted--------]
creating config.h
config.h is unchanged
Now type `make' to compile Gnome Libraries


The resultant Makefiles are empty. 

I have no idea what the deal is, but I do know that I have no problem
running automake, autoconf, and friends on non-gnome projects I am working
on and it all works just fine.

I even installed a clean Debian 2.0 onto a spare partition, installed
the above libraries, and tried to build gnome-libs -- with the exact
same result. This is preventing me from continuing my work on GnomeHack,
which is really a bother. Any ideas???  I'm stumped.

 -Erik

--
Erik B. Andersen   Web:    http://www.inconnect.com/~andersen/ 
                   email:  andersee@debian.org
--This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--