I boot Slackware 9 (Custom 2.6.5 kernel, although this problem has always occurred) - when I first launch into Gnome, GAIM 0.75 starts with the System Tray Icon plugin.

Here's the weird part - my CPU runs at 100% (mostly due to the notification-area -- this is where the system tray icon goes). If I click the system tray ICON (from workspace 1) forcing the buddy list to disappear, the CPU goes down to normal levels (less than 10% average). If I initially force the buddy list to disappear from any other workspace, the CPU remains at 100% use until I return to workspace 1, show the buddy list on workspace 1 and then make it disappear again.

This is probably a bug/anomoly with Gnome and GAIM, but I wanted to see if this might be something unique to what I'm doing. I also wanted opinions on the best way to describe this if I'm to submit it as a bug report to one of the projects.

This was a bug in the notification area panel applet. It has been fixed so you'll need to upgrade to the latest notification area panel applet. Better yet upgrade to GNOME 2.6 (I assume you're using GNOME 2.4, which this bug occured in).

What's the best way to update to GNOME 2.6 (I tried doing a source compile using some download tool) it wouldn't work.
I haven't tried it since upgrading to the 2.6.5 kernel. Anyway if there's an easier way - I'm all for it!

the best way would be rpms .

I see some newbies trying to upgrade gnome will they are using gnome. They don't even deinstall old gnome after they install a compiled version. How can you deinstall a software you are running is the question they don't even bother with.

rpm distros, rpm have to live with it when you choose it.

I actually found that I had to update to a more recent version of Swaret (it kept saying there were no new packages, but there were no other errors). I downloaded and installed the most recent Swaret - got a changelog, and Low and Behold - I could upgrade to Slackware-Current (with Gnome 2.6 support).

Tips for those whom are interested:

Swaret is available from http://www.swaret.org/

Make sure the Slackware version you have set in your /etc/swaret.conf file is "current".

root@slack:~# swaret --update
swaret 1.6.2-1

[ ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/slackware/slackware-current ]
### Fetching CHECKSUMS List File... DONE!
FILELIST List File is up-to-date!
Packages Descriptions up-to-date!
Extra Packages Descriptions up-to-date!
ChangeLog up-to-date!

root@slack:~# swaret --upgrade -a
--> This upgrades all packages that you already have installed. There are new (additional) packages that are also required...

root@slack:~# swaret --changelog
-->This one is really usefull. Scan though the ChangeLog (go way, way back)
--> to find all of the lines that say "Added" where the package described
--> (before the colon) is the same as the package described after the
--> "Added". Here's one such example...

ap/rzip-2.0-i486-1.tgz: Added rzip-2.0 (suggested by Daniel de Kok).

To update GNOME specifically, look at the items in the gnome/ package set (the example above is from the ap package set). Ignore the testing/ package set, unless you are very brave. I recommend adding all "current" packages, as there may be dependancies introduced later for packages added now.

I'm using a personal config - home compiled linux-2.6.6 (I've been keeping this pretty up-to-date) and the above is on a Toshiba (Celeron) 1 GHz 1800-S207.

Basically, everything works except the modem (which I don't need), and there is no decent graphics acceleration for the "Trident Microsystems CyberBlade XPAi1 (rev 82)" VGA controller. Besides that, everything is great.