Just to see if it would work, i've just attempted to compile the platform and desktop directories from the upcoming GARNOME 2.22.0 release of GNOME on both OpenSuSE 10.3 and Slackware 12.
Needless to say, the experience was better than previous releases -- a few minor caveats to be aware of for those who are stuck:
OpenSuSE will not build the platform/gnome-vfs directory without the libtasn1-dev libraries from Factory being installed first, libtasn is a spinoff of the gnupg libraries -- but it doesn't seem to be included in the official repositories, you can use the OpenSuSE package search to find a version suitable for your machine.
Slackware gets much further (Slackware 10, in contrast -- never got really far) -- a common build mistake that the uninitiated may trip on is that some required includes (like limits.h) are included in the kernel-headers package.
A full Slackware 12 build toolchain -- as required to build GARNOME is:
binutils, gcc, gcc-c++, gcc-g++, diffutils, patch, flex, bison, gawk, m4, make & kernel-headers
edit i: A new dependency list (DEPS-LIST) detailing all the packages required, has been sent to the current GARNOME maintainers -- hopefully it'll arrive for GARNOME 2.20 (fingers are crossed)
