Okay. We can take two approaches to the static linux compile:
1- requiring gtk 2.4 already be installed 2- requiring pango 1.0 already be installed
Pango does not appear to allow itself to operate as a statically compiled library. As a result, it's use of glib creates dynamic lib deps. I'm going to try to solve that, but it will still require pango dynamic libs.
I was shooting for only requiring pango, but this is getting harder and harder. My test-case is a redhat 9 box, and it really doesn't like me: /tmp/inkscape.strip: relocation error: /tmp/inkscape.strip: undefined symbol: g_type_class_add_private
So, I'm going to continue working on pango, but I think we can make an operational "static" build that requires gtk 2.4, since that's the bulk of the static lib work I've been trying to make work. Getting gtkmm hasn't been very hard. libgc has some tricks up it's sleeve, but I think I solved those.
I'm building an RPM now that basically requires gtk 2.4, but is actually my latest attempt at approach #2. I need someone with an RPM-based distro with gtk 2.4 to test it. All I have is gtk 2.0 on rh9.