Rewrite/reinstalling KDE desktop?
 

I have confused my 10.2 installation and now get a white screen and no panel, etc. imposed on the usual KDE windows, icons etc.

I don't want to do the shotgun thing and reinstall the whole OS but would like to clear away all desktop config files - KDE, Beryl, compiz - and reinstall them. Or do they have defaults to call on and do rewrite themselves?

Will I *truly* wreck things if I delete xorg.conf, say? How do I get a clean slate for my desktop?

Your KDE configuration is @ ~/.kde (hidden dir).

If you do:
You will firstly, back up your KDE config; secondly, remove KDE temporary files. Then the next time KDE starts it should be pretty stock.

You will most likely want to log out of KDE, then Ctrl+Alt+F2 and log in to enter the commands. Then type `logout` and do Ctrl+Alt+F7 and log back into KDE again.

Hope this helps.

Many thanks, hollywoodb, it worked. I initially got a fuzzy font and the screen was 5 cm off the left - and God knows where it ended up and to the right - but after changing the Desktop refresh rate from 50 to 62 Hz it suddenly popped into focus and into position!

To get rid of Beryl prior to re-installing, do I just rm ~/.beryl and ~/.emerald? I have a file 'beryl1' in ~ but I might have put it there...:confused:

Cheers

Well techinically you didn't "get rid" of KDE, you just made it generate new config files by moving ~/.kde to kde_backup. You can do the same thing with ~/.beryl and ~/.emerald, then the next time beryl/emerald starts it should be about stock.

Really you don't gain anything by reinstalling the packages, since you'll end up with the same thing you've already got. By moving or deleting any existing configuration, though, you'll get it to run as close to stock as possible, which is what many people think of when they think of reinstalling a package.

My poor communication. Sorry, hollywoodb. I understand about the config files being the true focus of any cleanup, I just wanted confirmation that .beryl and .emerald were sufficient to free me from any hangover from my previous messy setup. Knowing where ALL the config info is stored is what I was after.