First attempt to use jhbuild worked to a point

[Richard Quint <rquint rain org>]

I would like use jhbuild to build the gnome shell in order to study the 
code on the way to creating a gnome shell theme.  I am running a fresh 
install of Ubuntu 17.10.  Following the directions at

https://wiki.gnome.org/Newcomers/BuildSystemComponent

I am able to get to the point where I can get to building the first 
"useful packages."

Running jhbuild sysdeps --install yields the report

Required packages:
  System installed packages which are too old:
    (none)
  No matching system package installed:
    (none)
Optional packages: (JHBuild will build the missing packages)
  System installed packages which are too old:
    WebKit (webkit2gtk-4.0.pc, required=2.19.2, installed=2.18.3)
  No matching system package installed:
    (none)
I: No uninstalled system dependencies to install for modules: 
['meta-gnome-core']

and running jhbuild sanitycheck gives no output as hoped for.  But the 
next command

jhbuild build adwaita-icon-theme dconf glib-networking gvfs libcanberra

yielded a series of error messages.

I tried running jhbuild build <one package>, one at a time.

jhbuild build adwaita-icon-theme
jhbuild build dconf
jhbuild build glib-networking

all went well, but then

jhbuild build gvfs

is where I came unstuck.

FAILED: meson-install
  /usr/bin/python3 /home/rquint/jhbuild/install/bin/meson --internal 
install 
/home/rquint/.cache/jhbuild/build/gstreamer/meson-private/install.dat
  ninja: build stopped: subcommand failed.
  *** Error during phase install of gstreamer: ########## Error running 
ninja install *** [31/47]

I chose Give up on module and got this

*** module libgdata not built due to non buildable gnome-online-accounts 
*** [46/47]
*** module gvfs not built due to non buildable gnome-online-accounts *** 
[47/47]
*** module gvfs not built due to non buildable libgdata *** [47/47]
*** the following modules were not built *** [47/47]
gstreamer gst-plugins-base gst-plugins-bad gst-plugins-good gst-libav 
WebKit gnome-online-accounts libgdata gvfs

Any help would be appreciated.