How do I configure/compile GTK+? [GTK 2.x]

Generally, the minimum you need to do is issue the commands:

./configure
make
make install

in the GTK+ source directory.

This generally also holds true for each of the packages that GTK+ depends upon, listed above.

There are various options that you can pass to the configure script in order to change its default settings. The one that you are most likely to want to use is the --prefix argument, which defines where the package is to be install, e.g.

./configure --prefix=/usr