Compiling GNOME 2.16.x from scratch, having issues running it!

["Eugéne Suter" <easuter gmail com>]

Hi there!

I'm busy compiling GNOME 2.16.x for VectorLinux 5.8 (a Slackware 11 derivative distro).
I've been following this LFS Wiki for information of compile and stuff:

http://cblfs.cross-lfs.org/index.php/Gnome

I've taken care of all the major dependencies (HAL, PolicyKit, Avahi, DBUS and the like), and have compiled all the packages on that list until Yelp (haven't installed Yelp yet, still have to do a xulrunner package).

Anyway, I decided to take my current build for a spin, and started an x session in a terminal, and started gnome-session from there to see if any errors occurred (and they did).

The first thing that happened was that the panel didn't show up. Well, it did, but it was a small "crippled" panel, it was just a tiny strip at the top left of the screen.
The error that appeared in the terminal said that maybe I didn't load the panel defaults with "gconftool-2 --load".
So I loaded the ".entries" file in /opt/gnome/etc/gconf/schemas with tha command, and the panel appeared, but it was still not fully functional since no application buttons appeared on the bottom panel when windows were opened.
Also, the background didn't load, and none of the tool fromt he "System" menu work.

I uploaded a screenshot to my personal ftp account to show you what I mean:

http://clientes.netvisao.pt/alynnsut/gnome_probs1.png

This is somewhat annoying since I've tried recompiling my packages twice and obtained this same result. I made myself a generic compile script, that I use to compile all the packages (changing necessary flags and prefixes when necessary), and here it is:



TMP=/tmp
NAME=
VERSION=
ARCH=i586
RELEASE=4vl58
#Any compressed file can be placed here, as long as it is supported by tar
#on your system. for example, if the archive is a gziped tarball, then
#place ".tar.gz", as so: TAR_TYPE=.tar.gz
TAR_TYPE=
GNOME_PREFIX=/opt/gnome
PREFIX=${GNOME_PREFIX}
BUILD_DIR=${TMP}/${NAME}-package  
INSTDIR=${BUILD_DIR}/dest
TARBALL_NAME=${NAME}-${VERSION}${TAR_TYPE}
TLZ_DEST=~/gnome-tlz
PKGNAME=${NAME}-${VERSION}-${ARCH}-${RELEASE} 
#If you want the build directory to be deleted after the package has been
#cretaed then enter "Y" here. If not, then enter N (either of the letters
#must be capitalized!).
CLEANUP=Y

#Start by removing any directories that my have the same name as BUILD_DIR:

rm -rf $BUILD_DIR

#Make a symlink in $TMP pointing to the packages final resting place:

if [ ! -s ${TMP}/gnome-tlz ]; then
        if [ ! -d $TLZ_DEST ]; then
                mkdir ${TLZ_DEST} 
        fi
        ln -s ${TLZ_DEST} ${TMP}/gnome-tlz
fi

#Now make the build directory and copy the tarball to it and decompress the    
#tarball:

mkdir -p $BUILD_DIR
mkdir -p ${INSTDIR}/install  
cp ./${TARBALL_NAME} ${BUILD_DIR}    
cp ./slack-desc ${INSTDIR}/install/
cd ${BUILD_DIR}
tar xvf ${BUILD_DIR}/${TARBALL_NAME}

#Enter the build directory, export some inportant flags, configure
#and start compiling 

cd ${NAME}-${VERSION} 

if [ $ARCH = "i586" ]; then
        export CFLAGS="-O2 -mtune=i686 -march=i586"
fi

if [ $ARCH = "i486" ]; then
        export CFLAGS="-O2 -mtune=i686 -march=i486"
fi 

if [ $ARCH = "i386" ]; then
        export CFLAGS="-O2 -mtune=i686 -march=i386"
fi

export CXXFLAGS="$CFLAGS"

./configure --prefix=${PREFIX} \
        --sysconfdir=${PREFIX}/etc \
        --with-included-gettext \
        #--with-kde-datadir=/opt/kde/share \
        #--with-gnome-ditributor=VectorLinux \
        #--localstatedir=/var/lib \ 
        --mandir=${PREFIX}/share/man \
        #--libexecdir=${PREFIX}/lib/*-change-this-* 

make 
make DESTDIR=${INSTDIR} install

#Make the package, including slapt-get deps, and build info:

cd $INSTDIR 
requiredbuilder -v -y ./
cd install/
pak-details-sd
cd ../
makepkg -l y -p -c n ${PKGNAME}.tlz 
cp ${INSTDIR}/${PKGNAME}.tlz ${TMP}/gnome-tlz

#Do some spring-cleaning (or not):

if [ $CLEANUP = "Y" ]; then
        rm -rf $BUILD_DIR
fi

#EOF


As you can see, in contrast to the LFS Wiki I'm following, the sysconfdir is /opt/gnome/etc and not /etc/gnome (although I do have a symlink in /etc called gnome and pointing to /opt/gnome/etc.)

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, or if this is even the right place to post for help (the number of mailing lists is enormous!) but I'm kind of desperate to get this working for once and for all, and would appreciate ANY help or suggestions (but please don't tell me to just use dropline or freerock!).

Thanks in advance!

Regards,

Eugéne