First Time - Need Help

[cal godot <godot jazzflavor com>]

I'm a new convert to GNOME and am having some difficulties.

I recently installed RedHat 5.1 on my Toshiba 2150CDT laptop (previously, it
was running 4.2). I also installed Gnome -- not the one one the CD, but
rather the more up-to-date version at ft.gnome.org. Followed the directions
to the letter about installing. Attempting to use fvwm2 as a window manager
(but would gladly entertain suggsetions for another one, other than
Enlightenment, which is beautiful but hey-- I only got 16M of RAM).

But I can't get Gnome to work. It *tries* to work: the panel begins to come
up at the bottom of the screen, but then just vanishes without a trace. When
I try to run it from a window using 'panel &', I get:

  debug: need old_cfg here
  started applet, pid: 1146
  address.cc:437: assertion failed

  ** ERROR **: Could not communicate with the panel

then eventually the job dies with

  [1]+  Aborted          (core dumped) panel

I've beat on this for days, trying to find documentation, etc. Can someone
help me with this? I'd really like to begin using Gnome on this laptop, as it
and/or KDE are the only desktops that seem promising with only 256 colors &
640x480 resolution (it's an old laptop). And I don't want to run KDE anymore
(though I have,and it looks good on the laptop).

###
yr pal cal                 #         rpm --erase oldworldorder
cal@jazzflavor.com         #         rpm -Uvh newworldorder-1.3-2.i386.rpm