Re: Lost window manager and gnome-panel
On Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:53:56 -0500
Tony Nelson <tonynelson@georgeanelson.com> dijo:
> On 09-11-23 13:31:14, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> ...
> > 1) How can I fix Gnome? What part of the configuration starts
> > metacity and gnome-panel when the user logs in? Note that I'll have
> > to do this manually from XFCE, because I can't even get a terminal
> > running in Gnome.
>
> Try creating a new user. If that user works properly in Gnome, it's
> probably a user-specific config file, usually in a .gnome*/ directory,
> and diff'ing the files may help (I suggest meld, but I use vimdiff
> nowadays).
Now, why didn't I think of that!
Turns out that this was an excellent suggestion. I created a new user
(using XFCE4), then logged out and back in as the new user. When my new
user logged in I deliberately selected Gnome. And my new user got a
default Gnome desktop, complete with window manager and gnome-panel.
So now we know that the problem is something in my configuration.
The only thing I can think of is that Nautilus has a bug where clicking
on Preferences crashes it, so I used gconf-editor to change the way
Nautilus works. I could go back and set Nautilus to defaults (I think
there is an option somewhere for that), but I Gnome is not usable at
the moment unless I log in as my new user.
> > 2) How the heck did this happen? I did hundreds of things before I
> > rebooted - which thing messed up Gnome? Can someone suggest a way to
> > find out what I did to cause this so I can file a bug report or at
> > least avoid doing it again?
> Do more reboots / logins so you know sooner. In general, be cautious
> about copying config files around. It's safer to merge them manually,
> perhaps with meld.
I did use merge. But most were not even there, because they were for
apps that I installed manually.
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