Hi folks:
I found I could reproducibly break ethereal by updating to gtk+ version 1.2.10-20.
By force-removing and then using sudo apt-get install to install the previous binary version, I can reproducibly restore it.
The precompiled version that works with ethereal is gtk+-data_1.2.10-13
I rebuilt ethereal against the newer version 1.2.10-20 gtk+shlibs and this didn't help, but the new one works with the old precompiled gtk+ shlibs.
HTH,
Bill Scott
