[gnome-slackware]Gnome 2 Not Working Properly

[The Unknown Stuntman <paulk sportinglife com>]

I've just uninstalled Gnome 1.4 (which was compiled from source) and installed
Gnome 2.0.1 (from source, following http://www.karubik.de/gig/2.0/index.html).
I use Windowmaker and only want Gnome on my 'system' so I can use
gnome-terminal and other Gnome apps such as Pan.

I created a new user that just uses Gnome ('exec gnome-session' in ~/.xinitrc)
and uses Windowmaker as its window manager. After starting X, Windowmaker is
the first to load, then I'm waiting a matter of a minute or two for Gnome to
appear. It's a 1.1GHz computer with plenty of memory and I can see the CPU
sitting there being idle during this time.

I log in as the normal user that I use, that just uses Windowmaker and no Gnome
things at all, and run gnome-terminal. It also takes a matter of a few minutes
to appear. Further gnome-terminals appear straight away, as long as there is
already a gnome-terminal loaded.

I looked at ps before, during, and after: to begin with, ps showed no Gnome
stuff running, as it should. Then I invoked gnome-terminal. gnome-terminal
appears in ps as you would think it would, but the gnome-terminal hasn't
appeared on the screen. After a while, '/usr/local/libexec/gconfd-2 9' and
'/usr/local/libexec/bonobo-activation-server --ac-activate --ior-output-fd=14'
appear in ps, then the gnome-terminal actually shows itself on the screen.

That's problem one.

Problem two is: when it does finally appear, I can use the Gnome apps such as
Nautilus, Pan, and gnome-terminal. However, whenever I change any settings in
these apps, eg the desktop background (after 'gnome-session'), colours and
transparency in gnome-terminal, etc, they do not stay after I close the app and
run it again - restart X and the background picture has gone, the
gnome-terminal settings are back to default. All the permissions on the Gnome
stuff in the home directory are OK.

Can somebody please help with any of this?

--

.