[solved]GDM expert advise needed (desktop is dead)

yahont · Last edited by yahont on Fri Nov 26, 2004 3:36 pm; edited 8 times in total

Once my gdm hagned up because my box was overloaded, and I had to `gdm-restart' from another runlevel. Since then, my X behaves somehow strange. I guess some config files were corrupted, or changed by system, but I don't know which and where. Actually I've no clue what happened at all.
Symptoms are:
1. My desktop is empty. All launchers disappeared. But in `~/Desktop/' I can see at least one of them.
2. Background of desktop changed.
3. Ridht click on the desktop has no effect.
4. Upper and lower panels stay as they were.

any ideas what's going on?

hds · Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 5:52 pm Post subject:

would be nice if you adjust your subject and mention gdm.
i for example looked into this topic, but unfortunately am not of any help because i am using kdm.
thx.

yahont · Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 6:03 pm Post subject:

right, sorry.
here you are.

yahont · Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 6:05 pm Post subject:

by the way, is kde any better? or it's just a matter of habbit?

hds · Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 6:26 pm Post subject:

yahont · Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 6:48 pm Post subject:

just in case I'm using gnome-2.8

hds · Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 8:37 pm Post subject:

infact noone did a reply, see my post above yours.
and IMHO (really IMHO - my personal opinion) Gnome sux.
to get a nice desktop they use gdesklets, and whatever. so they blow it up likewise to KDE.
but, well, IMHO
use fluxbox (fast) - or KDE (lots of eye candy to your avail)

rhill · Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 5:53 am Post subject:

i had a similar problem, turned out it was nautilus that crapped out on me (nautilus provides the desktop) re-emerging it fixed the problem, then gdm crapped out on me. that's when i decided gnome might not be for me and switched to fluxbox.

yahont · Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 3:32 pm Post subject:

thanx for your reply.
unfortunately `emerge nautilus' didn't help, `emerge eel nautilus libgtkhtml gdm control-center orbit gnome-utils gnome' didn't help, either.
?????

yahont · Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 4:21 pm Post subject:

One more symptom:
4. Ridht click on the desktop has no effect.

yahont · Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 4:52 pm Post subject:

`emerge portmap fam gnome-vfs libgnome libbonoboui gnome-keyring libgnomeui hicolor-icon-theme gnome-icon-theme' didn't help, either.

yahont · Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 9:10 pm Post subject:

Neither did `emerge XML-Parser intltool pkgconfig gnome-mime-data'.

rhill · Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2004 12:49 am Post subject:

im not on gnome now so i might get this wrong.

go into gconf, into apps, nautilus, and make sure nautilus draws background or something like that is enabled. what you're describing sounds exactly like what happens when you disable the nautilus desktop.
_________________
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for a fact or just for effect

yahont · Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2004 1:25 pm Post subject:

hopefully, I understood you aright.
I checked `gconf-editor', desktop -> gnome -> applications -> component_viewer, and found:

ABCC · n00b Joined: 23 Sep 2004 Posts: 11

ive had this problem before aswell, its caused by nautilus not launching properly when gnome starts. you can resolve it by opening a terminal and simply running /usr/bin/nautilus, your background and icons should reappear, and return after you log out and back in.

hope this helps,

ABCC

yahont · Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2004 3:23 pm Post subject:

Yeees, that was it. Problem with desktop resolved. After rebooting desktop stays ok as well.
Thanx a lot, ABCC.