Debian & GNOME

[1-800-328-7448 <chalupa triax com>]

I am trying to set up GNOME on my Debian system, but having problems. At
first it was libgtk-1.1.so.2 not found, I have libgtk-1.1.so.3. Someone
in my local LUG suggested I make a symlink from libgtk-1.1.so.2  to 
libgtk-1.1.so.3. I did this, plus a few other symlinks, and it starts to
load then I get this error  "** ERROR **: file gnometypes.c: line 30
(gnome_type_init): assertion failed: (type_id != GTK_TYPE_INVALID)
aborting...
Aborted"

How can I work around this, or better yet fix it correctly? Any
suggestions appreciated.

Jeff