Running multiple GNOME installations

[Twist]

Just for reference, I found this trivially easy to do. I emerged gnome (to the standard build in portage) normally during install. I keep that as my reference install.

Then I built gnome-2.1.5 using Garnome with an install dir of /usr/local/gnome-2.1.5.

After that just added a session to gdm that set my PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, LD_INCLUDE_PATH, INFODIR, MANPATH, PKG_CONFIG_PATH so I was pathing the new install before the "stable" reference build. For example:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/gnome-2.1.5/libL/usr/local/lib:/usr/lib:/usr/X11R6/lib

Of course the directories would be different depending on your preference.

Also remember to set GDK_USE_XFT=1 in your session for AA fonts.

Based on having that later GNOME install, it was really afterwards to build Ximian Evolution 1.2.1 from source (just had to get a later version of curl I think it was, and Evolution has this brain-dead absolute dependacy on sleepycat db-3.1.17 instead of the latest; you only need it at compile). Oh, and if you happen to install Ximian you should set your OAF_INFO_PATH so the gnome-2.1.5/share/oaf takes precedence.

Now I'm rocking, I find gnome-2.1.5 no more or less stable than 2.0.3 - I'm not a huge fan of the gnome desktop, just use it to build dependent apps and get various lib features.