FAQ? background-properties doesn't work

[Preston Landers <planders mail utexas edu>]

Hello everyone,

I'm sure this qualifies as a Frequently Asked Question, but I haven't
seen an answer yet on this list or the Gnome pages, or through a
Dejanews search.

When I try to run background-properties, or keyboard- or
mouse-properties, I get this message:

Gdk-Message:
** ERROR **: sigpipe caught.

When I kill the process, it prints the same error again.

Any idea on what I can do about this?
  
I am running latest Gnome 0.30 Debian packages.  Some kind of library
incompatibility I assume?  Which gdk library should I be using? 
Basically I installed *every package* in the gnome/debian directory at
ftp.gnome.org.

If anyone could clue me in I would be extremely grateful.

Also, is there an easy way to edit the Gnome panel menu?  Please forgive
my blatant unmitigated newbieness.

Many thanks,

Preston Landers

I LOVE DEBIAN and GNOME!