I'll give that a go. Yes I followed your instructions and they worked nicely. I've also revised that library renaming script, but I still had to append the other external libraries and include directories.

Gtk2 is probably not worth all this effort, but I'm a stubborn and persistant son of a bitch. This meditation is as much about putting the solutions to these compiler problems up front on Perl Monks as it is about getting it done. Soon I think I'll be supressing my rage and writing up another article on the robustness, or lack therof, of makefiles. :)