GConf is a configuration database system, functionally similar to the
Windows registry and annoying in the same manner.  It's being written 
for the GNOME desktop but does not require GNOME; configure should 
notice if GNOME is not installed and compile the basic GConf library anyway.

Compilation on a clean Slackware 12.2 system additionally requires ORBit2
to be installed first.  A SlackBuild for ORBit2 is available from the
SlackBuilds.org repository.