...GDM (the GNOME Display Manager) complained about missing shared libraries. The first was libatk, an accessibility toolkit for handicapped access. I found that, installed it, ran ldconfig to update /etc/ld.so.cache, tried to restart GDM, and then learned I was missing libbonoboui. How's that? It was installed, the versions were right, and ld.so had created the proper symlinks.

Just in case I'd missed something, I reinstalled the bonobo packages I'd downloaded. Once more with GDM, and now I learn that GNOME wants libXinerama.so. Just for grins, I tried good ole startx as both root and a merely mortal user and got the same error.

Not only does GNOME have two left feet, they're club-footed left feet. I had static libraries for Xinerama (libXinerama.a), but no shared libraries. That's beside the point, though, because I don't run Xinerama! Why in the world do I need Xinerama libraries if I don't use Xinerama? This is brain-damaged, ill-considered design at work: requiring libraries that most people don't have and don't need.

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