Hey,

...

any suggestions for an alternative light-weight browser for linux users?

Unless someone else is prepared to write one from scratch, the main alternatives are hv3 and some of the cut-down gecko-based browsers (kazehakase and flock spring to mind).

geck is still big and needs glib2/gtk2...

The flock code is all under the MPL or GPL, so that may be a good starting point, since the flock additions are fairly neatly layered.

I'd be delighted to learn of any other approaches as well....

We at GNUstep are writing our own engine from scratch, compatible with WebKit. It shall targed handheld devices too. A first browser implementaiton is Vespucci, of the GAP project (gap.nongnu.org). ALthough it is far from usable, a screenshot can be seen on my blog (multixden.blogspot.com). SimpleWebKit runs also on myStep/QuantumStep which is a special version of GNUstep for handheld devices (zaurus, etc). We originally even thought about using Dillo as a starting point, but the code itself was glib.gtk dependent and the rendering limitations were high. Then the whole project essentially died. Sadly, I've been a Dillo user on many platforms and strange computers... Riccardo