After way too much searching for the answer to this, I have decided to post here.

Whenever I open GNOME, an error message showing "Application "nautilus" has quit unexpectedly" always appears. If I click on it, it comes back about 4 seconds later. My desktop wallpaper is still there, but I have no icons.

When I boot up, a text shows that I need kernel 2.6 to run some HAL features. That might be part of the problem.

Here's the error I get when I run it from a terminal window.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Initializing gnome-mount extension

** (nautilus:2552): WARNING **: Failed to initialize libhal context: (null) : (null)

** (nautilus:2552): WARNING **: Could not initialize hal context


(nautilus:2552): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_new: assertion `G_TYPE_IS_OBJECT (object_type)' failed

(nautilus:2552): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_weak_ref: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Shutting down gnome-mount extension
Initializing nautilus-open-terminal extension

-----------------------------------------------------------

My system specs are:
Slackware 10.2
Freerock GNOME (Not sure on how to find the version, but it is recent)
Intel Celeron Processor 1GHz (w/128KB)
Intel® 810 chipset, 100MHz FSB
192MB SDRAM
20GB HDD
12x Max. Write CD-RW Drive
3.5" 1.44MB FDD
Ensoniq 5880 AudioPCI (rev 2) sound card

Hope you can help a newbie

Hi, I have the same problem!
I've started mining for some info about this problem in many forums. Generally this problem can be caused by few reasons. Mostly there is some problems with gnome in amd64 platforms, problems with mounting fd (sometimes you just have to modify your fstab conf).

But our situation is caused because of kernel version. I found a way to solve it in gware (other gnome version for slackware) installation description.

check it out:

"- Note for kernel 2.4.x users - hal requires kernel 2.6.x, if you allow
the hald/messagebus scripts to run at startup, you will likely have
problems with your desktop. Please do the following to make sure they
do not start:

chmod -x /etc/rc.d/rc.messagebus
chmod -x /etc/rc.d/rc.hald
"

or chmod -x /etc/rc.d/rc.hal (rc.hald does not exist for freerock gnome I suppose)

My gnome works fine now . Try it out

Thanks for the reply. I thought no one would find this!

But it's too late. Today I just reinstalled Slackware and don't have GNOME anymore. Xfce has caught my eye. But now that freezes whenever I move a window and I can't even ctrl-alt-del! Argh. I wish I had a better computer to use Linux on. Or at least a video card 'cause I can't find the VRAM for the onboard one. That and I can't get my network configured.