1) I am using kubuntu 10.10 and the desktop used to be the kubuntu desktop. For some reason, I seem to have entered certain commands and the desktop switched to that of ubuntu.

How do I change between desktops?

2) I tried installing MSoffice 2007 on my kubuntu (using wine) and I cant seem to activate it. Is there any solution for it? I heard that 1 shld install win7 in vmware. Are there any alternatives?

1) think you should first check if the desired desktop is installed. in Debian, you can choose it in login screen, probably the same in kubuntu.

2) I prefer 'Virtual Box'

When you boot up you come to login page. There you will find two buttons, one for restart/shutdown options, the other for selecting desktops. Select Kubuntu desktop/KDE (whatever listed) there
You really want MSoffice? LibreOffice/Openoffice that comes with linux is as good as MSoffice.

It would be, if everyone else were using it. As it is, it can't handle .doc(x) properly. There never has been a good converter, that would preserve all the formatting (for any kind of text documents: html, quarkxpress, word perfect..).

What qrange said. Failing that, log out, press ctrl-alt-f1, log in. Run this command
Press ctrl-alt-f7 to get back to the graphical login screen. The .drmc file is where your default desktop preference is stored.

1 members found this post helpful.

rm .dmrc returns a value of file not found.
This brings me to another question.

tty means virtual terminal right?

Why does Ctrl+alt+f7 bring me to a graphical login?

I wish to know why and I dont want to do it blindly.

When your system has come to login prompt, it has invoked a number of tty's, usually 6, you can check it in /etc/inittab
When you start an X session, either by typing startx/xinit on a command prompt or graphical session manager invoked by runlevel script, a new tty starts at the next available number (in this example 7) which manages your screen.
When you are on a tty you can switch between terminals with alt+F[1-6/7]. When you are on an X session you can switch with Ctrl+Alt+F[1-6]

Well if you don't have a .dmrc and you're not getting he desktop environment by default that you expect, then maybe you've managed to installer something.

What's the output of this command?

BTW, what does drmc stand for?

c@c-laptop:~$ grep Exec /usr/share/xsessions/*
/usr/share/xsessions/fluxbox.desktop:Exec=/usr/bin/startfluxbox
/usr/share/xsessions/fluxbox.desktop:TryExec=/usr/bin/startfluxbox
/usr/share/xsessions/gnome.desktop:Exec=gnome-session
/usr/share/xsessions/gnome.desktop:TryExec=gnome-session
/usr/share/xsessions/gnome-failsafe.desktop:Exec=gnome-session -f
/usr/share/xsessions/gnome-failsafe.desktop:TryExec=gnome-session
/usr/share/xsessions/kde.desktop:Exec=/usr/bin/startkde
/usr/share/xsessions/kde.desktop:TryExec=/usr/bin/startkde

When posting output of commands it is best to wrap it in CODE tags.

I don't see a problem. What you refered as 'that of Ubuntu' is the GNOME desktop environment and there's a session file for it. Can you not just select GNOME at the login screen as others have suggested?

I would guess dm is short for Desktop Manager. rc is a common suffix for configuration files. If you see a file who's name ends in rc the chances are it contains configuration for something. They use of rc goes back decades, it's just one of those things that became a convention and has been carried along through various *nix implementations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run_commands