Spent the last four days trying to install gnome 2.6. Finally gave up in frustration. I wanted to install Anjuta (still looking for that kick-ass C++ IDE for Linux -- don't get me started on KDevelop), hence the interest in gnome (I like KDE a lot, actually).

Lost count of the number of times I typed 'configure', 'make' and 'make install'. But I must confess I went about it in a none too orderly fasion. I downloaded gnome-terminal 2.6, and tried configuring it. Found out all the missing packages and then downloaded them (and then downloading the packages *they* depended on and so on).

I was able to successfully compile and install all the required packages, but when I run gnome-terminal I get some critical errors (assertion G_TYPE_IS_OBJECT failed...). There are a lot of gotchas when you are compiling these 2.6 packages. I will try to list some of them later.

Better to wait for gnome-2.6 to make an appearance at Debian (BTW, I did try to get the experimental gnome-desktop-environment package using apt-get, but this spewed out a whole bunch of packages which were necessary but were not available. I beat a hasty retreat).

But in this process, I somehow managed to correct the problems in my earlier gnome packages; Anjuta (1.2.1) is now working! There is a load of error messages, though. Ignoring them by feeding them to /dev/null.

I must say, I am pretty impressed with Anjuta. Especially like the automatic word completion (even within quoted strings). But I don't like the way my project folder is cluttered with so many boiler-plate stuff (Makefile.in, Makefile.am, configure.in, etc.). I am sticking to my simple, hand-crafted makefile. I was able to import this directly into Anjuta.

Vajra is misbehaving. Segmentation faults for no reason. Tried both gcc 3.2.3 and 3.3.2. I have the feeling that it has something to do with libc6 or glibc. I am also not able to use the debugger with Anjuta. Sprinkling my code with couts.

I really must do something about my fonts. They are really crappy. If I have one crib against Linux, it is this. But hey, I should just RTFM, right :-) ?