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I decided to try a different filesystem from the one I was already using, Mint 13 XFCE using "Thunar" So I changed to XFE and then to PCMANFM and than back to THUNAR. After I typed my username and password nothing showed up, does anyone know how to fix this problem. Thanks
The file manager generally controls your desktop...
It is possible that logging off and on may be sufficient - or even a reboot, but I'm just guessing there.
As a last resort you may need to reinstall thunar, so that it can reset its configuration files.
Hi, no what I was doing was trying out different filesystems. And decided to back to
my original filesystem THUNAR, but when I rebooted the system and typed my username
and password all I got was a black screen.What I should see is my desktop user interface.
...In a text editor, open the 3 “File Manager” .desktop files and find the one that has the line “Categories=X-XFCE;X-Xfce-Toplevel;“. Change the line “Exec=Thunar” to “Exec=pcmanfm %U“. Save and exit. Now when you click that menu entry it will open PCManFM...
Probably other places too.
If so you have trampled on some XFCE files.
If you have only recently loaded XFCE and are just getting the feel of it, your easy option is a quick re-install of XFCE.
If you have done a lot of setup etc, then you can recover as you still have access to the command entry line.
Press CTRL+ALT+F1
You can now sign in.
To check you still have your files enter
XFE, PcManFM and Thunar are all file managers. Now, it's possible to create filesystems with the same sames as file manager, most people don't do that. For example, I have filesystems labeled Win7, Mint16, Archives, U1404, and Rawhide on my desktop's internal hard drive. PCManFM is the file manager for the desktop I use when I boot distro installed on the filesystem labeled U1404, whereas Nemo is the file manager I use with the desktop when I boot the disto installed on the filesystem labeled Mint16.
While at root shell create a test user, log into GUI as this test user and see if everything looks as expected. If it does, then the screwup is in your home directory, you may want to rm some config files to have them re-created.
I think there is a miss understanding. I uninstalled thunar to try out xfe and pcmanfm
and then returned to thunar when I rebooted my system my desktop did'nt show up. There's nothig wrong with login like username and password it's after that's the problem.
I booted into recovery mode and dropped down to root shell prompt to type in ls -lh and the ouput was total 0
I think you shouldn't have/needed to boot into recovery mode for that.
It's not a real problem, but the point was to just try to list your "Desktop" and perhaps "/home/username/" folders, you don't need to be root for that, usually.
I suspect that you may have just listed a different folder, but there's the possibility that you've either somehow deleted or moved your home folder or its contents.
I think you'd be better by either trying to log in a different type of desktop environment (gnome, KDE), if you already have one installed (there may be some option related to that in the login screen). If you don't have one, you probably still can reach to XFCE's own GUI root controls, create another user just for test, and then log in as that test-user, just to see if it's everything working right.
Perhaps, even before that, you can just drop in some normal-user terminal, and try to create some dummy file on your desktop (something along the lines of "touch ./Desktop/dummy-file-test", once you're at the command prompt). If thunar's desktop is one of those which display any file type (I'm not sure it is) that should make that file appear at your desktop. Or maybe you can create such test-file just with a right-click on the empty space of the desktop, you often can do that in many desktop types. Either way, if a new test-file shows up, then you've either deleted or moved your files somehow.
You could then try to use the command "find" to find a file you had on your desktop, whose name you remember exactly, just in case you've accidentally moved them somewhere unknown. They may even be at the trashcan. Perhaps XFCE/thunar even comes with some GUI tool to find files.
Your desktop modifications are stored in your home directory, in several configuration files, run ls -la to see them. So instead of arguing, create a test user and see if it works normally. If it does then your box is OK, just your user conf is screwed up. This is part of troubleshooting.
But then again, if instead of troubleshooting you'd like to argument go ahead, just have this thread moved to some chat forum.
No argument, just trying to learn. The thing is I'm new to the commands, the only commands
I know are ls,cd,acpi,pwd and others that nothing to do with this problem. I typed ls into
command shell, output no directory. Thanks for your help
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