yeah...I thought it might be gtk1 being a prime factor.
Hm...what debian based distros would have no prob with old gtk1..?
antiX possibly?

or maybe use some old resurrected distro to pull it off?

Hm..tracked down the gtk and glib for 1.2.10 ...but neither wish to play well with the latest lubuntu...
meaning...resurrecting a corpse out of the distro graveyard and beating what is needed into it.
or...
using antiX ...they look like one of the only debian distros left that are still keeping the old gtk1 flame alive...
annnnddd ...
they just finished getting antiX 15 out of beta...
sooo I'll be messing with that over the week and see what I shall see concerning getting gtkgep on it.