_please_ help: panel "memory"

[Pete Toscano <ptoscano loudoun com>]

hello,

i've asked this to the list three times now and nobody's even tried to
help me.  i really want to say with gnome, but this problem is enough to
get me to leave and go to kde.

i've compiled gnome from tarballs.  i have all the most recent tarballs
(though i just noticed that a new version of libxml is now out, so i
guess i'm behind with this one package).  i'm using linux 2.2.11 and gcc
2.95.1.  my window manager is window maker 0.60.0 with --enable-gnome
used to compile it.

when i enter x (with gnome-session being the only entry in my .xinitrc),
everything starts up eventually (there's still a problem with wmaker and
--client-id argument) and i use the control-panel's window manager to
add a new window maker entry without the "window manager is session
managed" option checked (since window maker won't startup with the
--enable-gnome option).  everything seems to work fine.  startup is
fine.  windows left open before when i logged out, come back when i log
back in.  changes i make to all the apps are persistent.  

all, that is, except for the panel.  whatever changes i make are lost
between sessions.  there isn't even a ~/gnome/panel.d directory.  if i
removed icons from the panel, add/change applets, or anything else, it's
all lost the next time i start x.

if i change the gnome-session in my .xinitrc file to wmaker and then use
an xterm to startup the panel, everything works, even after i quit x and
then restart it.  this would be all fine if all i wanted was the panel,
but i want to experience all of gnome.  i, also, don't at all like the
default panel setup, so there's a lot of reconfiguration i do.  i'm sure
you can see how frustrating this can get.

two strange things that might shed some light on the situation.  first,
i've built gnome from the ground-up from tarballs on my work machine
also (same config as above) and that works fine (though the machine's
too slow and weak to handle the weight of gnome).  second, thinking that
i might have some cruft around messing this all up, i completely removed
the entire contents of /usr/local (where gnome is installed) and rebuilt
everything from there.  i also removed all the .gnome* directories from
my home directory.  after rebuilding and reinstalling, the panel's "log
out" function still logs me directly out without the "are you sure?"
prompt.  a few gnome tries ago, i checked the "don't prompt me again"
checkbox on that dialog box.  i'm thinking that i still have some cruft
around somewhere or else that config setting wouldn't still have stuck.
where else ore what else should i have removed to reset that option?

would some kind soul, please help me?  please, ask me any questions
about my setup or make any suggestions and i'll be glad to try them.  i
really want to keep using gnome, but this is just getting to be too
much.

thanks,
pete

PGP signature