Compiling GNOME 2.6

GNOME is an excellent desktop environment, with a focus on usability and accessibility. With a 6 month release cycle GNOME developers are constantly improving upon the gnome GUI and feature set.

The latest release is Gnome 2.6 and features many changes to the interface, most apparent is the new "spatial" Nautilus file manager, and improved filechooser. Details of other improvements with screenshots is available here.

GNOME 2.6 will begin to be included in the various distributions soon, but for the impatient it is possible to install from source available from the GNOME FTP site. These packages form the core distribution of GNOME, not all are compulsory but it is best to install all packages to prevent any dependency headaches.

This page aims to provide the more impatient with the order in which to compile the GNOME packages. It has been adapted from GNOME's release notes, with a slightly different order as there are a few mistakes and omissions.

Dependencies
Before you can compile GNOME 2.6 you should make sure you have installed (and working):


 * GCC - download
 * Autoconf - download
 * Jade
 * XFree86 - download
 * Fontconfig/Xft - download
 * Freetype - download
 * pkg-config - download
 * docbook-xml [docbook dtd 4.1.2]
 * docbook-xsl [docbook xsl stylesheets]

These are required to begin compilation of gnome and most distributions have these packaged, alongside these there are a few development libraries needed:


 * libpng
 * libjpeg
 * libtiff
 * XFree86
 * libpopt
 * libbbz2
 * zlib
 * libfam
 * mozilla (optional, needed for compilation of the epiphany browser)

The list may include installation of these dependencies, if already installed skip these out and hope no problems arise, these are highlighted by italic text (e.g. pkgconfig). Though it is advised to make sure the latest stable versions are installed. Version information is not included on this list so it remains as correct as possible as packages are updated.

Compilation order
All packages once extracted can be installed using normal procedure for compiling from source:
 * 1) ./configure
 * 2) make
 * 3) make install

The package order:
 * libxml2
 * libxslt
 * gtk-doc
 * glib2
 * libIDL
 * ORBit2
 * intltool
 * libbonobo
 * fontconfig
 * Render
 * Xrender
 * Xft
 * pango
 * atk
 * shared-mime-info - download
 * gtk+
 * gconf
 * gnome-mime-data
 * gnome-vfs
 * esound
 * libgnome
 * libart_lgpl
 * libglade
 * libgnomecanvas
 * libbonoboui
 * hicolor-icon-theme - download
 * gnome-icon-theme
 * gnome-keyring
 * libgnomeui
 * startup-notification
 * gtk-engines
 * gnome-themes
 * scrollkeeper
 * gnome-desktop
 * libwnck
 * gnome-panel
 * gnome-session
 * vte
 * gnome-terminal
 * libgtop
 * gail
 * libgail
 * libxklavier
 * gnome-applets
 * metacity
 * libgsf
 * libcroco
 * librsvg
 * eel
 * gstreamer (make sure you have libraries for any audio codecs you plan to use isntalled)
 * gst-plugins
 * nautilus
 * control-center
 * libgnomeprint
 * libgnomeprintui
 * gtkhtml2
 * libgtkhtml
 * yelp
 * bug-buddy
 * gtksourceview
 * gedit
 * eog
 * ggv
 * file-roller
 * gconf-editor
 * gnome-utils
 * gal
 * gnome-system-monitor
 * gnome-media
 * nautilus-media
 * gnome-netstatus
 * gcalctool
 * gpdf
 * gucharmap
 * nautilus-cd-burner
 * zenity
 * gnome-speech
 * at-spi
 * gnome-mag
 * gnopernicus
 * gok
 * epiphany
 * gnomemeeting
 * gnome-games
 * gnome2-user-docs
 * gdm

This order worked for me, though no guarantees, so good luck.

NOTE: If you encounter compilation errors try ./configure --disable-gtk-doc before panicking .Also You may search Google using the exact words describing error mostly last line of output. .Update all packages related like GTK+ Pango etc to latest or you may likely get errors