a few problems compiling

["Aisen, Alex M." <aaisen iupui edu>]

I am trying to compile gnome for the first time, and have a "few" problems.
Can any Wise Ones help me with these:
I downloaded the 99.5 files via anonymoust cvs.

1) in gnome-glibs, the configure script run by autogen.sh
--prefix=/usr/local/gnome complains that my esd-config script is not found,
even though it seems to be where it should be (/usr/local/gnome/bin)

2) I could not compile gnome-objc, because ecgs was found but would not
work.  Does anyone know what version I need, and where I should get it?  

3) In gnome-core, I get errors in  ../idl/help-browser.idl when I run the
make, and it quits.  the errors are first, that the "module" command cannot
be found, and second that there is a syntax error in or near the unexpected
token fetch-url.  The errors are fatal, and my make halts.

Any hints as to what I am doing wrong?

Thanks again!