Thanks for everyone's help. I'm still chugging through this, but I'm closer now.

I got the system to boot to a console by remove gdm. I found out that I was installing the right packages for SDL and OpenGL, I just wasn't including them right in the source file. I was using #include<gl.h> instead of #include<GL.h> (which is where they were actually installed). Silly me.

I've since broken X, but I'm working on that, and I think I have the permissions all but worked out.

Thanks everyone!