Well, it took me a couple of days but I managed to get "GNOME 2.12 Beta 1":http://gnomedesktop.org/node/2335 , aka 2.11.90 to build on Gentoo [1]. I ended up making a bunch of ultra-poor-quality ebuilds. I first attempted to get "GARNOME":http://cipherfunk.org/garnome/ to build, but it hates Gentoo. When I finally managed to get all the required GARNOME packages to build, most GNOME apps segfaulted or simply didn't work because of the conflicting libraries between Gentoo and GARGNOME. I don't think GARNOME is very Gentoo-friendly.

So next I just tried building my own ebuilds since "BreakMyGentoo":http://www.breakmygentoo.net/ has been inactive for awhile and I really wanted to see the new code.

I'll tell you what I did, but if you wanna try this yourself do so at your own risk.

What I did

First, I had to take 'sandbox' out of 'FEATURES' because a few of my ebuilds tried to break out and I was just too lazy/dumb to fix them. Next I bascially went through the 'platform' directory on the "GNOME ftp site":http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/ and created ebuilds for each package. Creating an ebuild for me means copying the latest existing ebuild from portage into my overlay and editing it to reflect the new dependency requirements. Now I did not do a thorough dependency evaluation. Basically, if a package requires GTK+ then I put '>=x11-libs/gtk+-2.7'. Since GNOME 2.9.11 comes with GTK 2.7.4 then this should be fine. Basically every package's dependencies were the latest version available to GNOME 2.9.11. After I create an ebuild I do a 'emerge -Duva world' and keep fixing issues or creating new ebuilds until everything builds successfully.

Once I got everything in 'platform' to build. I did the same thing for the 'desktop' directory. Now some packages require software updates that are not part of GNOME. And, more than likely, these updates are not in portage so I had to create ebuilds for them. Also, some of the updates, for example 'cairo' and 'hal', break other non-GNOME programs. But that's the price you pay for being cutting edge .

So when I got 'platform' and 'desktop' finished I was basically done. I didn't bother with the GNOME 'bindings'. Nothing under 'desktop' seemed to depend on them. Also, I simply didn't make ebuilds for packages that I don't use and weren't dependencies. For example, the accessibility stuff.

I also removed patches that fixed other bugs if those patches didn't apply cleanly. So basically this is a hack.

If you're intersted I've attached my overlay as a tarball. Note that this is my personal overlay and probably has some none GNOME stuff in it. I've attached the overlay for anyone who's is interested in doing the same thing but doesn't want to start from scratch like I did. This does not mean, however, that I am releasing it as supported software. It is in no way an official Gentoo release. It's for you to tinker with if you want. If you have problems with the ebuilds please, please, please don't bother the Gentoo developers. Don't bother the GNOME devs and don't bother me. Well, if you see me on FreeNode I may entertain a question or two .

[1] "GNOME 2.12 Beta1 running on Gentoo":http://starship.python.net/crew/marduk/publish/GNOME-2.12-Beta1_on_Gentoo.png