dwforslund:

I wonder if it would help to contact the 'PyMaemo' folks?

http://pymaemo.garage.maemo.org/

I've tried to contact them with no response. I'm still in the dark as to why the gconf stuff isn't working. I wish I knew where to begin looking.

If I do a python -v and then type "from gnome import gconf" I get:
import gnome # directory /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gnome
# /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gnome/__init__.pyo matches /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gnome/__init__.py
import gnome # precompiled from /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gnome/__init__.pyo
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: cannot import name gconf

I looked at /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gnome/__init__.py and it is 0 length.
It has the same time stamp as the __init__.pyo file in the same directory. Is this any clue?

For labyrinth, it seems to refer to a file /etc/issue to see if it is an internet tablet before it does the from gnome import gconf. Each app that fails seems to invoke this same command but in a different way.

This is perfectly OK. __init__.py may be of 0 size. It's just there to transform a plain directory into an importable package for python.
__init__.pyo on the other hand is simply the byte-compiled version of __init__.py.

If there is nothing in __init__.py, how is the import gconf supposed to work?

There should be a gconf.so file in the same directory.

There is no gconf.so file in the directory. Only __init__.py and __init__.pyo.

Hey, I don't even have a '/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gnome/' directory on my N800 -- nevermind any 'py' or 'pyo' files underneath it! I wonder if some aberrant package created the directory (when it should not have), and then messed you up?

I wonder what would happen if you temporarily *renamed* that directory so that it could not be found? This is just a suggestion -- I don't know the possible full impact of trying that.