Here is a copy of an email sent to Surrey Linux user group on Sunday:


As you may remember I am using Mandriva 2009.1 PWP .I did not like KDE 4

and removed it to stick with KDE 3.5.I very rarely use Gnome.Last Friday I looked for updates in the control centre, there were about a dozen,and proceeded to install them,and then closed down.
Since that time I cannot type anything into the system,after log-in in KDE.Today I logged into Gnome and all is working normally.
So, any ideas as to what has gone wrong ?
I have spent a couple of hours today trawling through the repositeries to see if I can find anything wrong,but I don't really know what I am looking for. HELP.
Regards,Peter

P.S.The Asus laptop is working fine even though I updated it just after the desktop.

No answers have been forthcoming.Can anyone here help?

Sure. The line here:
Kind of says it all. Since the only problem you're having is in KDE, and you say that you removed KDE manually, and did a re-install of an older version, chances are you corrupted/removed some library that you need. The fact that Gnome is working, indicates that it's not Linux itself that's broken, or your hardware.

Since you don't say what you did, exactly, or how you did it, best we can tell you is to re-install KDE.

I must mention that everything was working perfectly for about 7 months before this,and my Asus 1000H laptop,which was set up exactly the same but
with far fewer apps. is still working.So my inference from this is that one of the updates has caused this problem.Where do I go from here?
Regards,Peter

As said, you re-install KDE.

You say it was working perfectly for 7 months..BEFORE you removed/edited/changed the configuration. Without knowing what packages were changed/modified, how can we tell you what to look for? A fresh re-install of KDE will update it, and all the dependent libraries.

Well,Well,Well.Following on from my difficulties I reinstalled KDE 4 and reluctantly used it,but still found it as clunky and awkward as before.Yesterday evening I checked for updates and a list of over 130 (including new Desktop Kernel) which I then proceeded to apply.
On returning to KDE 4 I found it possible to add widgets to the panel and change the background colour.I had tried to do this before ,every whichway and failed. I then proceeded to go back to KDE 3.5 and it was working again.
So,did someone at Mandriva blunder with the Friday updates? Anyway my problem is resolved.
Regards,Peter