[SOLVED] How to recover lost gnome desktop

garyg007 · 11-14-2011, 12:07 PM

I was trying to clean up my desktop and must have done something stupid. What happened is that everything on the desktop, except for the background, went away. The stuff is still all there - but no desktop.

Everything that was on the desktop is accessible using "twm".
Also, running "nautilus" from a command line, will allow me to open a folder and will also display my "lost" desktop until I close the terminal window - then every thing closes. I created another user and an initial gnome desktop is there for that user.

What do I need to do to get my desktop back so its there when I log in?

The OS is Debian/Squeeze-stable
The desktop is gnome.

cynwulf · 11-15-2011, 05:35 AM

I haven't used gnome in well over a year, maybe more, so my memory is fuzzy as to where it keeps all of it's configuration. Have a look in ~/.config/ for configuration files relating to gnome, gnome panel, nautilus etc. If you want to revert back to the "vanilla" state, you can delete those (I suggest you move them to back up files rather than deleting them outright), but you will have to kill the X server first.

garyg007 · 11-18-2011, 04:01 PM

Thanks, Caravel, for the comments. Unfortunately, I had already re-installed/removed/installed the following:

Quote:

gconf2-common
gconf2
gconf-defaults-service
gdm3
gnome-accessibility
gnome-accessibility-themes
gnome-applets-data
gnome-applets
gnome-core
gnome-desktop-environment
gnome-session-common
gnome-session
gnome-themes-extras
gnome-themes
gnome-themes-more
gtk2-engines
xorg

That did not solve the problem; however, after that, I noticed that if, after boot-up, I did 'ctl-alt-f2', signed in as 'userid', shutdown gdm3, then entered 'startx, the majority of my pre-problem desktop was back and usable until I re-booted the system
then I had to repeat the same commands.

If anyone has any ideas what is going on now and how to correct it I would, I would be eternally greatfull.

Hungry ghost · 11-18-2011, 08:23 PM

What I do when I have problems like this is to start Gnome without any previous configuration. To do this, log out to GDM, then log into a virtual console and rename .config, .gnome2 and .gnome2_private to .config-bak, .gnome2-bak and .gnome2_private-bak:

Code:

mv .config .config-bak
mv .gnome2 .gnome2-bak
mv .gnome2_private .gnome2_private-bak

If it's only a configuration issue -as it seems to be-, it should work.

EDIT: Forgot to say, if this works, you will start Gnome from scratch, and after you've set everything up, you can delete the *-bak directories you renamed with the commands above.

Regards.

garyg007 · 11-18-2011, 10:44 PM

odiseo77,
Thank you for the suggestion; I'll have a go at it as soon as I get the system backed up.

Gary