Gnome-libs: cannot configure

[Tim <hairballmt mcn net>]

I'm at my wits end having been unable to configure gnome-lib for the
last month -- after moving to glibc 2.1.  This started with
glibc-2.0.112 and is still with me using glibc-2.1.1:  When configuring,
I get sed: unterminated 's' command conftest*.* broken pipe, which
results in the creation of empty Makefiles.  It matters not whether
configuring from cvs or from a tarball, or what the installation
directory is.
Current system:
   (was slackware)
   kernel: 2.2.3
   glibc: 2.1.1
   automake: 1.4 - same results with 1.3
   autoconf: 2.14 - same results with 2.13
   libtool: 1.2e - same results with 1.2d
   sed: 3.02a - same results with 3.02
   gnome-libs: 1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.0.3, 1.0.4 -- tarball/cvs same results
   egcs: 1.1.2  -- although I never get to that point :-(
Can't check the conftest* files since they don't really exist, but
ltmain looks fine from what I could follow.  It must be a system config
problem, but I am at a loss as how to proceed to find it.  The only
other warning I get is '...not configured for cross compiling' and that
has never mattered before.  Any suggestions I might receive here would
be greatly appreciated.

   Thanx 
- Tim

PS:  Maybe we should drop B. Clinton on Serbia :-)