I just went through a rather frustrating Linux experience and I'm really hoping to learn what I should have done better. I'm running Fedora 6 with kernel 2.6.27.41 on a 64bit processor.

I initially tried to install libusb, which informed me I needed a newer version of gtk. During the configure of the latest gtk release I was told I first needed a newer version of glib. Rather then enter the world of never-ending dependencies, I resorted to yum. However, the repositories I have setup in yum don't have the newer versions of gtk or glib, so I was out of luck. I proceeded with my install of glib, which appeared to install successfully (./configure; make; make install), but my system still thought the older glib was present. I believe I had v2.18 on my system and I had installed 2.24. I used
Code:
pkg-config --modversion glib-2.0
to confirm the version. I tried listing all of the installed packages in rpm to uninstall the older versions, but glib didn't appear. I guess that's because it came prepackaged in my Fedora install?

I googled for a while, pursued several fruitless ideas, and eventually pulled a major stupid: I recursively searched for every file with "glib-2.0" in it and deleted it. I then immediately reinstalled glib v2.24 that I had just downloaded. Again, the installation appeared successful, and I confirmed there are several newly installed glib-2.0 files in my system. But now my system is claiming no glib library is present at all. And, of course, the entire graphical interface has died. I'm in command-prompt mode only now (crtl-alt-F2).

Here's what I'd like to know:

1. I love using yum, but the repository thing confuses me. There are tons of online yum how-to guides that explain how to add repositories, but they all just say "here's how you can add any repository you want!" without giving specific examples. And the ones that do mention specific repositories, they all seem to be out of date or non-functioning. How do the Linux gurus find out where all the good, current yum repositories are?

2. When I went to install the new glib library, shouldn't it have detected an older version was on my system? And when it did fully install with no errors, why does it seem to be hiding? How do I tell Linux that it's really truly there.

3. If you have something installed on your system that isn't in the known rpm list (such as my older glib version), what's the proper way to uninstall it?

Sorry for the long post. I really appreciate the help.

-Dan