GTK/Gaim problems... again.

I know that this subject has been posted on forums before, but I still haven't found a solution that works and I'm starting to get frustrated. When installing Gaim you need GTK+ 2.0. So I downloaded it and installed it which is fine. However, when running Gaim's configure file, I get this message at the end:

checking for pkg-config... /usr/bin/pkg-config
checking for GLIB - version >= 2.0.0... yes (version 2.2.1)
checking for pkg-config... (cached) /usr/bin/pkg-config
checking for GTK+ - version >= 2.0.0...
*** 'pkg-config --modversion gtk+-2.0' returned 2.0.0, but GTK+ (2.2.1)
*** was found! If pkg-config was correct, then it is best
*** to remove the old version of GTK+. You may also be able to fix the error
*** by modifying your LD_LIBRARY_PATH enviroment variable, or by editing
*** /etc/ld.so.conf. Make sure you have run ldconfig if that is
*** required on your system.
*** If pkg-config was wrong, set the environment variable PKG_CONFIG_PATH
*** to point to the correct configuration files
no
configure: error:
*** GTK+ 2.0 is required to build Gaim; please make sure you have the GTK+
*** development headers installed. The latest version of GTK+ is
*** always available at...

Not only does this mean I can't install Gaim, but the weird thing is that I don't even HAVE GTK+ 2.2.1, at least not to my knowledge. Hence, even if i did have the source files for it, I cant uninstall it. I've tried all the "export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/blahblahblah" things many a time, and to no avail. What can I do? And is there any way of removing all GTK versions without the install files? Help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

what distro are u using? mandrake, redhat, slackware? inf mandrake, mandrake control center, then system. you can pick to install or remove rpms. search for gtk and see if you have it installed or not, and what version is installed. hope this helps.

I'm running Knoppix 3.2. I dont know if just deleting the files is the equivalent of uninstalling something or not... but it's really getting annoying. Why can't Gaim just use it? It finds it okay, why does it matter if there's another version anyway? Grr.

hmm - programs are reliant on many factors such as
the widget, windows manager and program.
An easy way around these sort of problems is -

when installing....

install BOTH Gnome and KDE - even if you only intend to use one of them.

These are the mainstream desktops and most apps are written for one or the other.

I had this come up when I tried to install gaim (on debian). I did an apt-get install gaim and that worked.

Okay, I just got it working. ./configure for gaim has a '--disable-gtktest' option that you can use when configuring whcih skips the GTK test, and it still works after compilation. Seems like this must be a bug in the Gaim config file. I guess that option is generic for most programs, so if you have that problem then try the option i just described when configuring (if you KNOW you have GTK+ installed). Thanks for your help

I cant install gaim either, I've tried everything listed above and i get the same messege that moist posted, I tried the --disable-gtktest option, it then tells me that i dont have glib 2.0 I've installed gtk+ 2.0 and glib 2.0 I havent messed with the PKG_CONFIG_PATH thing yet as I have no clue what it is. . .(yeah I'm new) or maybe I need to remove the old versions of glib and gtk? Any help would be appreciated.

worth a try. i had errors like that and did a reinstall in mdk 9.1 and used all the rpms that mdk came with and everything works.

okay.... Seraph, try using --disable-glibtest as well as --disble-gtktest. This will skip both the tests, so MAKE SURE that you have installed them both properly, or Gaim will mess up when you try to run it. If you're wondering where I'm getting all this info from, if you edit the ./configure file with emacs there are a whole lot of options you can use when running it.... they're listed about 6% of the way down the file.

All the PKG_CONFIG_PATH is, is an environment variable that you can set to tell pkg-config where to look for the .ps files it needs to determine what is on your computer. type "pkg-config --list-all", and if you get an error at the end saying it cant find a .ps file that it needs, then type "export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=[location of missing .ps file]". this will only work until you log out of the current session. hope this helps some.