Frustrating, all the quirks to iron out of my latest "upgrade".

Now, when I open a new window, the "title bar" is hidden behind the panel at the top of the screen. I can't click-and-drag the window down to resize it. Even worse, some stuff (like the "search" entry box in KATE) is hidden behind the bottom panel. The window is bigger than the desktop. Since upgrading a few days ago, I've chased lots of needed tweaks, but this problem only started with the most recent reboot.

I'm in Gnome and running Debian

alt + left-mouse-button on any part of the window will let you drag it around.
If you resize it, nautilus will usually remember the settings for new windows.

ghjhmmm... sorry if i misinterpreted your question, but are you saying there is no title bar, that holds the close minimize and restore/maximize button???
if you are

I usually run the command
(or if i want emerald)
but I normally have either of those start on boot, or in a shell script.

I hope this helped somebody!

Thanks for the replies, guys.

So again, I'm using Gnome and I have a "panel" at the bottom of the screen and I'd prefer another panel at the top of the screen. When I open a new window, it does have the usual title bar (the top part of the border, including "minimize", "maximize" and "close" icons). The problem is that when the window is maximized, the title bar is hidden behind the upper panel and the bottom of the window is hidden behind the bottom panel. I've moved the panel from the top of the screen to the side, so I can at least continue working, but that's not a satisfactory long-term solution (the left edge of the window is hidden behind the left panel). It seems that the window manager figures I have a bigger screen, but the "panels" seem to know where to go.

This system has been doing fine for a few years, now and I've been using KDE up until they "upgraded" to KDE4 (sizzle/no steak). I've been in Gnome for a few days and until yesterday when I rebooted, the window/panel/title bar situation was completely normal. I don't think it's an xorg.conf issue because the panels are properly placed. It isn't a problem with the settings of the monitor, because I've adjusted the display size (using the controls on the monitor itself) and I can see the edges of the display area and the windows are beyond that.

Thanks-

See post #2
Have you maximized the window?
Are you using compiz?

This sounds like a Gnome problem, & you sound like you went to Gnome out of frustration w/ KDE 4. Doesn't Debian maintain both KDE 3 & KDE 4 packages, can't you revert to KDE 3? (Or have I misunderstood you?)

Not familiar with Compiz except for what I just read on Wikipedia. I think I would know if I was on Compiz, right? If yes, then no, I'm not on Compiz.

You are insightful, archtoad6. And reversion is tempting if it's not too time-intensive. I mean at least now, I can get stuff done.

I don't even know for sure how I would do that. I use Debian testing for my sources. There is no "kde3" or "kde4" package shown in Synaptic.

Of course, I'd like to know that I can load either Gnome OR KDE and have them work like they're supposed to, so I'd like to fix the Gnome thing and watch for the day when the KDE team flushes out the infiltrators from Redmond.

Thanks much, all respondents for your consideration.

Not always - but I suspect that compiz is not a default in debian as it is- with others.
If the windows wobble when you drag them or the desktops slide when you switch them you are using compiz.

Note - there is a recent known bug affecting title bars. Perhaps this is it?
The fix is supposed to be in Metacity 2.27 - and there is comment that compiz does not have this problem.

For some reason you have not responded to the other suggestions. Please review and post feedback - title-bars stuck behind panels is a common problem with a number of possible causes, so I need the information to narrow it down.

So, you are saying that when you maximise the window (say, firefox) the top of the firefox screen is behind the panel?
beats me, however i will keep thinking about it.

Put the focus on the window and press F11 see if that helps.

That works fine until I maximize again, when I have to do it again.Nautilus just remembers the extents of the monitor's field: the title bar still goes behind the panel.The command appeared to do what it's supposed to, but the same problem remains.
Stuffs the title bar behind the panel.
The panel goes away and not only the title bar, but also to "File-Edit-View-etc" menu bar goes off of the monitor's display field.

Cool - sounds a lot like that bug I told you about in post #8.
You can update metacity or install compiz.

:blushing:

I use KPackage & apt-get (trying to move to aptitude). I also use the Konqueror "pseudo protocol" deb: -- try deb:kde3 & deb:kde4 in Konqueror & see if that gives you any leads. I am writing from a MEPIS 7 box, not MEPIS 8 or Debian, so I can't be more helpful.

You're welcome.

Try doing:

killall gnome-panel

This will just restart the gnome-panel. Also check your panel properties (right click on panel) to see if checking/unchecking stuff like autohide fixes this. IMHO, some setting in gconf is screwed up and causing this.

I remember facing this a long time ago - I finally did the brute force approach of renaming my home directory to a _safe suffix and creating a new home directory and logging back in. Of course I had to move back a good number of dot files/directories but didn't take me much long. Its a bit extreme for some.

Thanks for trying, guys. After like 7 years of working with Linux with high hopes of it growing out of being no more than a hobby for regular users, this latest "upgrade" from KDE or from Debian has failed me completely. On another system running Debian stable, I tried upgrading (staying with stable) for my wife's use and partway though I got an unrecoverable problem with debconf. Goggling it shows it is a bug, but I guess Debian has been too wrapped up in getting plasmoids running that they forgot about basic stability. When my system is screwed, I just deal with it. But when I can't get keep my wife's system up, it's time for change. Any comments on iMac vs MacBook Pro?