: mkdir ~/.gnome2

mkdir: /Users/paul/.gnome2: File exists

The ~ character means "home" or your home directory. It sounds like the process doesn't have permissions to create a directory in your home: if it's not running as you, that makes sense, as you don't want a web server process writing into user home directories. If it is running as you, you may want to verify that you can write. 

cd ~; chown -R <your username> . 

This should run without issue, but the messages you get back will tell you what's wrong. 

For permissions, it looks like 0700. 

drwx------     9 paul  paul        306 Mar 31 16:36 .gnome2