KDE start bar going kaput
 

ok so whats the deal with this KDE interface. This is the second time in a week that i have turned on my computer and over half of the programs and links that were on my startbar or whatever that thing is called are gone.
Configure my computer? wrong its not there anymore
thahell?
I started up the software package installer and selected a ton of stuff to install. Put in all the mandrake cds so it would install everything i wanted. It said everything installed fine, then when im done half my programs are gone from their shortcuts and NONE of the junk it said it was installing is linked anywhere, im assuming i have to manually find it and make my own shortcuts.....
One more thing, i recently got a "old linux" on my bootloader menu. What the hell is that?
i tried it and it booted into linux like the normal "linux" option on the bootloader does.

And if anyone knows the answer to this mystery: my stupid touchpad works sometimes and sometimes it doesnt. I think it depends on if i have the usb mouse plugged in while i boot or something i dunno, but i dont want the touchpad to work at all unless i dont have a mouse plugged in. Its annoying as hell to try to type "around" the touchpad. any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

one more note
 

i have used linux for about 3 hours so if you get on here and start telling me all sorts of commands and editing configs and shit then im just gonne simply re-install mandrake.

I can't say that I know wat's going on because I usually use Gnome. However, I can say the reason you have "old linux" on the boot menu is because you probably chose upgrade and installed on your HDD from the disks which makes it think you're installing a newer kernel, and therefore it thinks it has an old one to boot as well.

If you could post a screenshot of any point in time of your KDE desktop I might be able to come up with a few ideas though of what's wrong.

Ok guys i got the problem fixed. I used a "update" command with i think the switches -rv
I found a post on the mandrake forums where people were having the same problem. This completely rebuilt my menus with all the new stuff that was installed. works great now. I had to use the su command in the console and then the update command.