Please help! Background, key, mouse properties don't work (also, menu editing)

[Preston Landers <planders mail utexas edu>]

Hello everyone,

I'm sure this qualifies as a Frequently Asked Question, but I haven't
seen an answer yet on this list or the Gnome pages, or through a
Dejanews search.

When I try to run background-properties, or keyboard- or
mouse-properties, I get this message:

Gdk-Message:
** ERROR **: sigpipe caught.

When I kill the process, it prints a sigterm message.  Of course,
background properties doesn't work, and selecting it in the Gnome menu
doesn't do anything.  If I leave it running, it will soon consume all
availible processor time.  

Any idea on what I can do about this?
  
I am running latest Gnome 0.30 Debian packages.  Some kind of library
incompatibility I assume?  Which gdk/gtk library versions should I be
using to use the gnome-control-panel package? Basically I installed
*every package* in the gnome/debian directory at ftp.gnome.org.  Is this
bad?  

If anyone could clue me in I would be extremely grateful because I am
really at a loss here.

Also, I'm having a bit of trouble editing the Gnome menu with the
supplied menu-editor.  It won't let me move folders inside of folders,
and somehow I have a bunch of KDE apps cluttering up my menu!  Please
forgive my blatant unmitigated newbieness.

Many thanks,

Preston Landers

I LOVE DEBIAN and GNOME!