x server problems after gnewbie instillation

[Norbert Froese <nfroese interchange ubc ca>]

In an effort to learn more my linux box, I recently installed the latest
version of gnome from source.

I have since had multiple problems, including the following with my X server.

Immediately after instillation, gnome and X seemed to work well when run as
root, but very, very slowly when run as a user.

Afer a hard reset, my x server no longer worked (either as a user or root),
complaining thet it could not open font 'fixed'.  The previous two lines read:
	FontTransSocketUNIXConnect: Can't connece: error=111
	failed to set default font path 'unix/:-1'

After some research into the documentation of XF86Config I figured that the
specified font server (a concept I admit I don't understand) isn't doing
what it should be.  I replaced the line:
	FontPath  "unix/:-1"
in my XF86Config file with
	FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
which allowed x to start again.

Still, I suspect that this fix isn't fixing what is really brocken, and I
hope that understanding this problem may help me with other bad things
which have been happening since my installation.

I am running RedHat 6.1 with a 2.14 kernel. I uninstalled the rpms and
compiled and installed the packages in the order specified on the
installation from source web page.

I would be grateful for any thoughts.

Norbert Froese