Ubuntu Lucid, nautilus sets my desktop to root
 

I'm having the worst luck with my upgrade to Lucid Lynx... My upgrade didn't go well, and I had to do a fresh install. Now, after doing all that work reinstalling everything, I've broken it by, I think, messing around with a menu item to run Nautilus as root using the command "gksu nautilus --no-desktop --browser %U" (I just added gksu before an existing menu command).

Well, I guess it was a mistake, because it didn't bring up the the gksu prompt, but now, everytime I boot, it brings up the prompt. If I cancel, I get a root desktop, but I can't do anything. If I enter my password, I get a root desktop, but I now can interact with it.

My home directory is still normal, I just can't use my desktop (as a desktop). I don't have the option set to remember running programs, and I've tried everything I can think of. Anyone know how to reset this? I guess I could create a new user, delete the old one, etc. but I really need to stop screwing with this system and do some real work.

I saw a similar problem in the Ubuntu forums from a year or two ago, with no answers (and not much detail from the user).

Create the new user, take your own advice and stop screwing with your system.

Thank you so very much for your helpful response. I really learned a lot by basically just doing the equivalent of reinstalling the OS.

Whew! Just like Windows... something goes wrong, so just reinstall. Thank you thank you thank you. Your guidance will help so many, I'm sure. But in this case, perhaps you should keep quiet and allow someone who has a clue to make a constructive suggestion.

Stop screwing with your system - sheesh, you must be a Windows wannabe!

I merely echoed what you said yourself..!! Why are you breaking your working system when you have no clue how to put it right?

There would be no need to reinstall if you used your system to be productive instead of being destructive.

By all means sit there and wait for a response to your problem, then waste more time trying out the plethora of options.

If your intention is to learn, don't do it on a system you rely on for day to day work.

Despite what you think, there are some snippets of helpful information in my post for you.

Oops I forgot to respond to this:Better than being a winblows has-been.. Na..nana..na..na.... :D

WTF? Are you unclear on the concept of "Linux Questions"? If you don't know the answer, read and learn, and keep your big mouth shut.

What makes you assume everyone has lots of systems to mess around with, anyway? Do you think people shouldn't make any changes to their system? Oh My Fucking God! I added something to the menu, I am such an idiot. How could I do something so stupid? I deserve any grief I get!

Did it ever even occur to your little mind that my work might require the updates or changes I made? Why do you presume to dictate how I should use my system? If you can't help, please get out of the way and let someone with a clue respond.

Jeez, you must be one of those users of a dumbed-down system that thinks he's an expert because he learned how to install an OS.

Anyway, I've straightened the problem out without reinstalling anything. I was being facetious when I said I felt like just creating a new user - that's the lamer's way to fix things.

You think that was helpful, considering other potential people that might answer? Nobody gets paid here for their help, and if you add some nasty attitude on top of that, you're pretty much ensuring you won't get help. Being angry is all right, being angry at others not so much.

That's pretty arrogant. However, if you found a solution, please do describe it here in detail, especially if you've found somebody else has had similar trouble in the past that was not resolved. Then, if you haven't already, alter the title of this thread to tell [SOLVED] to mark the correct state.

I'd say the advice to create new user was accurate, because it's fairly quickly done and is nothing close to reinstalling an operating system. You can well do it so that the "new" user is actually called the same as your previous one. Actually you do not need to re-create the user account from scratch, because from what I understand this is simply a problem in (saved) configuration, and can thus be solved in one of two ways: 1) by fixing that configuration if you know what exactly it was that changed or 2) by resetting the configuration to defaults. The latter one is probably easier if you do not know what exactly changed, provided that you cope with the results: you may revert other things to defaults as well, for example desktop customizations. Most of those are, however, so small changes that you'll barely notice and compared to the stress of recreating a whole user account or reinstalling an operating system clearing out some configs is not much. The way to do this is simply to remove certain files/directories that are related to the problem, because user settings are typically stored under your home directory, in files/directories whose name begins with a dot (e.g. ".gconf"), which means they are usually not shown by your file manager unless you want to. When a new user is created, these files don't exist and are thus created by your system; in the same fashion, if you remove (some of) them, log out and then back in, they usually get recreated (that would of course depend on the software that uses those configuration files, but when it comes to Gnome, this is how it works).

Because removing is a bad idea when you don't know what you should remove, you should instead create a temporary directory and move the appropriate files/directories there, perhaps in small amounts, and check when things change. Or if you're lazy, just move all (that you can) of them. In a bad case, if things don't get better or if they get worse instead, you can simply move the files back to restore your previous configuration. Or when things get fixed, just remove the temporary directory along with the files inside, and you're done.

Creating a new user effectively does just that, gives you a "default" configuration into which you then move your personal files. I think the concept of "recreating" a user in this way is completely different from the Windows equivalent, at least I feel it's much less work. And if you consider clearing out configurations as mentioned above on Linux (referring to distributions, not kernel) and on Windows, you'll notice that it's very probably much easier on Linux systems than on Windows, where you'd have to work with the Registry instead of just a bunch of files.

You could also search the gconf (by using gconf-editor for example, if you're into graphical tools) tree if you knew the problem was related to Gnome desktop configuration. It's the place to look at for settings that you won't find at the Nautilus settings dialog (because adding all of them into a configuration dialog would make it look horrible), and while it may resemble (by the outfit) Windows Registry, it's nowhere near that beast (actually the tree is under $HOME/.gconf/ so no magic is involved). If you're tired to go through it all or can't find what you're looking for, clear the configuration and you'll be served the defaults again.

Altough it is possible, in the future I recommend not to run Nautilus with root privileges inside a regular user Gnome desktop, because all you essentially get is a file manager with root privileges, and that can be arranged in other ways (log in as root, use a file manager that is not an integrated part of your desktop, ...) to diminish the possibility of messing things when you don't have time for it.