On SUSE-11.4 (Gnome desktop), while trying to install gimp-2.8.0 from source, I had installed atk-2, gtk±2 and gegl-2 from sources to satisfy some of the dependencies. The install of dependencies was successful but the gnome-panel went missing. The problem was solved as under:
- Runlevel 3 (Cntl+Alt+F1).
- login and run command: rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd
- Reboot. The panel reappeared. It would require configuring as needed
RSP2