Desktop disappears, everything else works

[Robert Guthrie <rguthrie@pobox.com>]

I've got a strange problem.  This morning, when I logged in through 
kdm, kde started up, but the background was (still is) a neutral 
beige instead of the wallpaper I've been using for months.  Also, no 
desktop icons show up, and no menus show up when I click on the 
desktop area (they should, shouldn't they?)

I've opened up konqueror, and hit the "Desktop" icon, which shows 
everything that should be ON my desktop.  Looking at the properties 
for that icon, it says that the last time the directory was modified, 
accessed and created was yesterday at the time I logged off 
yesterday.  The rest of my home directory shows normal information 
like a creation date that comes many days/weeks/months before the 
last accessed or modified.  That's my only clue.

I'm running potato, and using all but the "optional" section from 
kde.rap.ucar.edu.   The only change I can recall making yesterday, is 
removing that optional section from my sources.list file, and 
removing and re-installing ssh, so that it's version would match my 
firewall's ssh version.  Re-adding that section and doing an "apt-get 
update; apt-get dist-upgrade --download-only" gives me the version of 
ssh that I replaced yesterday, and nothing else.

I've tried stopping kdm and removing all of the /tmp files created by 
kde, but that had no affect.


-- 
Did you know that if you play a Windows 2000 cd backwards, you 
will hear the voice of Satan?

That's nothing!  If you play it forward, it'll install Windows 2000.