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Old 11-09-2009, 10:20 AM   #1
davmax
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Nov 2009
Posts: 3

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The "mouse" panel applet in the Gnome panel has crashed my Ubuntu Karmic completely


Hi, I am writing from Windows because I can't use Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Gnome at all.

I was trying things and added this Gnome panel applet which is about mouse features. I really don't even know the proper name for those panel applications and for this one in particular because just after installing it (it asked for log-off and on) my Ubuntu became not usable anymore. I just can't do anything at all. I can only open some context menus with the right button but nothing works, nothing opens.

I bet it is somehing to do with my poor graphic card and that mouse applet.

Can somebody please help? How can I remove that mouse panel application if I cannot open anything? Do I have to reinstall everything? Please no...

Thanks in advance.
 
Old 11-10-2009, 03:00 PM   #2
b0uncer
LQ Guru
 
Registered: Aug 2003
Distribution: CentOS, OS X
Posts: 5,131

Rep: Reputation: Disabled
If you can't figure anything else, move the Gnome-related (or all, if you're in a hurry and don't care just now) "hidden" directories (directories whose name begins with a dot) from within your home directory to a temporary location. This is effectively the same as erasing Gnome-related (or all, if you moved all) user configuration, i.e. reverting your desktop to the default settings. After this you should be able to login. You could just remove the files, but moving is better because if you notice you just lost something important, you can move it back (which you cannot do if you remove the files). If you wonder how to do this without being able to log in and start anything, just (at the login screen, for example) press CTRL+ALT+F1 and you should get to a text login console -- log in and start working. To list the dotted files under your home directory,

Code:
ls -d $HOME/.*
where '-d' makes ls print just directory names, not their contents as well (and $HOME so it works even if your current working directory wasn't your home directory at the moment, as it usually is after logging in). See what you think you need to move, make a (temporary) directory and move. For example to move .gnome2 and .gnome2_private,
Code:
mkdir $HOME/MOVED_DOT_FILES
mv $HOME/.gnome2{,_private} $HOME/MOVED_DOT_FILES
Now MOVED_DOT_FILES contains the two directories (note how you can use {} to write the file list shorter in bash -- it extends to ".gnome2 .gnome2_private"). You might have to do this to some other directories, I'm not quite sure where all these desktop related settings are; a quick way is to move all ('$HOME/.*) dot-files, but then you'll either have to re-do all your custom settings like theme changes if you have them, or pick and move directories/files back.

When you think you are done,
Code:
exit
then press CTRL+ALT+F7 to get back to X, log in as usual and see if it helped. If not, try moving other directories..

EDIT: you should probably log off from your Gnome desktop before doing this, because otherwise it might have some files in use when you start moving them around, and that might be a problem (or then not). A reinstallation of the system is like shooting a fly with a 155mm artillery, as this is clearly a settings-related problem which can be erased by erasing the configuration file, or in other words, to make Gnome forget it ever put the thing in use in the first place. I think it's a problem if something wrecks up the whole desktop just because you added something to panel, but this isn't a perfect world..and if moving the files/directories does not help in any way, just move them back, overwriting any newly created files to get back to your initial configuration. Then think of something else

Last edited by b0uncer; 11-10-2009 at 03:06 PM.
 
  


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