Gnome without a network

[Federico David Sacerdoti <fds offm62 wuh wustl edu>]

Hi,

I am trying to run a Gnome 99.8 machine without a dedicated network
connection and its giving me all kinds of attitude. 

I would like to simulate a dialup condition where the network is activated
at some point during a gnome session. The problem is that E has an error
and quits when many of the apps are launched. Interestingly, on my machine
gmc launches and runs fine when all the other programs are causing
segfaults.

The reason I am writing is that E is dying too soon after it displays the
reason for the error. I dont have time to read the error message before it
dissapears. 

I feel like I should know this, but I cannot find where E dumps its error
messages. Is there a log file I can look at?

Thanks,
-FDS

ps about the configuration: The only active interface on this system is
the loopback device, I have declared that "DNS is not required for normal
operation" and, in fact, the ppp device is not configured yet, and cannot
be accessed. In effect, the network can never be reached.