Work around this by installing, alongside gnome-icon-theme, a system-wide gtkrc containing the line: gtk-icon-theme-name="gnome" This avoids assertion failures regarding missing icons with GTK+ applications when executed outside of a Desktop Environment like GNOME or XFCE. Also remove x11/gtk+2/pkg/MESSAGE-main which is no longer needed. Problem noticed by Patrick Keshishian Discussed with and OK ajacoutot@