I'm pulling my hair out...

The history:

1. Installed FC3.
2. Installed GTK2.6 with default locations, no prefixes.
3. GTK2.6 using program could not find it (GLanChat)
4. Re-installed GTK2.6 to /opt/gtk-2.6 prefix.
5. Configured GLanChat successfully. Compiled it, it runs.
6. MPlayer config can't find GTK1.2 (gtk-config).
7. Got GTK1.2 RPM's, installed them.
8. MPlayer compiles, runs.
9. Then, GIMP not working, GFTP not working, ethereal not working. Undefined symbol error complaints in libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 in /usr/lib.
10. Went into /usr/lib, made libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 point to libgdk.a
11. GIMP and GFTP started working, but only if started from a terminal.
12. In the terminal I have appended /opt/gtk-2.6/lib to PKG_CONFIG_PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

Is there anyway to get my GTK programs started again if I use the KDE menus (apparently, starting from a menu does not have a certain environment variable set - obviously - that is now required to run dynamically linked GTK apps)?

How can I get ethereal stared? From an xterm it now reports

[rylan@StefanLinux ~]$ ethereal
ethereal: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0: undefined symbol: gdk_threads_lock

?

How can I fix my broken GTK setup? Apparently the killer was installing GTK2-6 in default locations, and NOT in /opt/gtk-2.6 the first time...

Or is my only recourse to re-install the whole FC3 setup? Certain GTK apps work only from the terminal now (NONE now work from menus) other GTK apps don't work at all with the undefined symbol error above.

Is there some kind of GTK bible/howto/holy grail somewhere? Never before had this much trouble with -anything- Lin related as I'm having with GTK...

ANY help appreciated!

Thanks...

Got it fixed - neccessitated that I re-install by whole FC3 system, then made sure to install GTK2.6 to /opt/gtk-2.6 and NOT to default locations. Fixed now...