Problems installing GTK+ 2.4

[Joe <joe cdtc co uk>]

Hi everyone

I'm having a problem with the installation of GTK+ 2.4. I have looked 
through the list archives, found a similar problem, but after following 
the steps to solve it found that it didn't work for me.

My problem is that when running ./configure for gtk, the message 'error: 
pango 1.2.0 and Xft backend required' comes up. All of the supporting 
packages for gtk are the latest versions, including pango 1.4, xft 2.1.2.

From previous postings to this list I have figured out that the problem 
lies with pango not building the required xft backend - however I can't 
figure out why it isn't.

Running 'pkg-config --modversion xft' gives 1.4.0

xft was configured with ./configure --prefix=/usr/X11R6, and I have 
copied the xft.pc file into all of the directories in my PKG_CONFIG_PATH 
(PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/usr/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/X11R6/lib/pkgconfig"), 
but pango completes the ./configure process with 'config: backends: X' 
and not xft, and goes on to make libpango and libpangox but no libpangoxft.

I have noticed that when configuring pango, no mention of looking for 
xft is displayed, and the fontconfig check for the latest version passes 
ok. I have been trying to solve this problem for quite a few frustrating 
hours, and any help anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated.

BTW my system is running RedHat 7.2 if this is of any importance.

Thanks in advance, Joe