Installing GNOME on a server

["Chris R. Martin" <bluerider@bigfoot.com>]

I have a server which exports /usr/local/ to several other PCs (which mount
it under /apps/). This has worked several well with the few
applications/libraries I've installed. However, GNOME is a different story.
It uses the "bleeding edge" versions of many basic libraries, like zlib,
libjpeg, libtiff, other libraries which are needed for other Debian
packages which I have installed locally on these PCs (most notably the X
server, but there are others). Since disk space is scarce on some of these
PCs, I'd like to keep big applications like this on the server, and just
the "basics" on the PCs.

My problem is having multiple versions of these libraries availible, one in
/usr/lib (provided by a Debian package) and in /apps/lib (provided by the
server in /usr/local/lib). Although I have /apps/lib in ld.so.conf,
/usr/lib is  always searched first it seems.

So, now I need to either re-think my entire arangement or come up with a
way for the libs in /apps/lib/ to over-ride the libs in /usr/lib/.

Does anyone have any advice? 

Thanks,
Chris