Lately, when logging into Gnome 2.2 (Redhat9) I get an error message "switchdesk.png" not found. Details: file doesn't exist. I can't remember deleting such a file, I didn't even know it existed. This happened after quite some reorganisation of panels, drawers etc and doesn't happen when I loogin as root or another user.

Can anyone give me some advise on what this file is and where it belongs (maybe post it) ?

Thanks it advance

George

Alternatively, is there a way to change permissions for a whole folder, including all subdirectories and files ? If so, please tell me, I could just copy all the stuff over and have *relatively* little work to make everything working again.

To change permissions on a whole directory use this command:

chown -R user.group directory

The -R means recursive.

As for the switchdesk.png file, it's probably an image needed by one of your applications. I don't use RH or Gnome so I can't give you a definite fix for the problem. But this is what I would do if it were me.

Search your computer's config files to see what config file is calling it and where it expects to find it:

grep -r switchdesk.png /*

This will probably take a long time and might return a lot of results. If you want, you can pipe the output of this to a file so you can go through it easily.

grep -r switchdesk.png /* > locate_switchdesk.txt

If that tells you where the file should be located, you can search your computer to see if it still exists using:

find / -name switchdesk.png

and copy it to where it needs to be to launch Gnome.

I'm sure some of the other guys here will be able to help you a lot more than I can on this.

could be an icon image it's looking for

Switchdesk is a redhat program to change desktops, from gnome to kde for example, if you don't use switchdesk then you won't need to worry about the missing image file.

Thanks for your replies.

The problem decided to dissapear (again, don't know why), it probably will stay an unsolved mystery.

George

Try switchdesk and see if it works ok.

Im having same problem....Im assuming from what I have read here that it is a redhat 9 thing, which is my distro as well.

trying the fix posted right now, will give more details later.

personally...I dont like it when problems go away on their own..usually that means something just got worse, and the problem didnt go away it actually got worse. but that may just be the paranoid in me.

edit:

actually it turns out that the grep -r switchdesk.png /* command returns null for me. nothing happens. blink blink blink. my fault, Im sure, but ....




hmmmm.


did you hear that?