What's wrong with my KDE?

[baareem92]

Hello everyone!
I'm new to this forum but i have a basic knowledge of linux.
I was once an happy ubuntu user (and still i am on my Desktop PC) but, since i last run apt-get upgrade on my netbook, i found myself disgusted by the TERRIFIC "UNE" Desktop environment.
I tried then to follow instructions HERE in order to try to restore gnome's "normal" functions but something went wrong and my ubuntu kept crashing when starting gnome and all i was left with was the command line when running linux as root AND in recovery mode.

- I thought it would have been a good idea to give KDE a try -

so i logged in as root and gave this command:

apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

apt-get downloaded everything and installed almost all packages, but all of a sudden i got an an error message i didn't write down, mentioning that a certain package size (it was named "cryptoSOMETHING") didn't match the repo's one.

As suggested by apt-get, i run

apt-get update && apt-get autoremove && apt-get install kubuntu-desktop --fix-SOMETHING_I_DON'T_REMEMBER_XD

And everything went smooth.

reboot

Finally the netbook rebooted and i was prompted with kubuntu's grub blue screen.
First time it crashed once again, second time it started and KDE login screen appeared!

But here things got worse.

As i login with my user, nothing appears on screen, nothing but the wallpaper and a terminal window where i run programs from.

I'm not allowed to switch from a window to another and this way i can just use one program at a time, i can't change windows dimentions nor move them.

The few things i can see about KDE graphics -just the scroll bars- are very poor and look like the (not so)good-old windows98 theme.

No start panel, no nothing.

I think that something went wrong when switching from gnome/UNE to KDE and probabily there are some conflicts somewhere. I think maximus (that program witch makes gnome windows more suitable for small netbook screens by removing that bar there is on top of them -that bar you use to maximize/unmaximize windows-) wasn't deactivated and this makes me impossible to move/resize/switch windows, exactly as it was with UNE.

Please avoid answers like "format and re-install everything" because this is not the kind of approach i like to have towards linux - that would be more a Windows-lazy-user-who-doesn't-understand-what-is-happening-on-his-pc-like approach -

Thanks everyone
Baareem

[baareem92]

Re: What's wrong with my KDE?

uhh, i forgot to add the link where i wrote "HERE" - no matter -

[oshunluvr]

Re: What's wrong with my KDE?

I applaud your desire to fix rather than start over but there's really not much to go on at this point. We'll need more specific information to proceed.

Are you able to view boot messages by hitting ESC during boot?

Are you using KDM or GDM to launch the desktop session?

Can you log into the text console via CRTL-ALT-F1?

Often, desktop issues begin in the home directory. You might want to start by renaming your home directory and logging out and back in. This will create a new "clean" home directory.

Start going through your log files and see what error messages are coming up. I would also attempt to run apt-get again and see if any other packages are drawn in.

[baareem92]

Re: What's wrong with my KDE?

Are you able to view boot messages by hitting ESC during boot?

I think so: during grub loading i am prompted to (sort of) grub's terminal, but i think this is not the case.
During linux boot i can see boot informations as well, but i don't see any error message, just logs about the processes being opened (and only those i left open during my last session).

Are you using KDM or GDM to launch the desktop session?

KDM i think, as after installing kde-desktop through apt-get i was asked whether to switch from GDM to KDM or not. -and i chose KDM -

Can you log into the text console via CRTL-ALT-F1?

Yes i can

Often, desktop issues begin in the home directory. You might want to start by renaming your home directory and logging out and back in. This will create a new "clean" home directory.

Uhg...i did that but no automatically created new home, a popup tells me KDE will be using / instead of /home but it just doesn't work, screen flashes a pair of times and after a while i see the default GNOME wallpaper (yeah...) but nothing else appears. just mouse arrow and wallpaper.

I then switched to the text console with ctrl-alt-F1, renamed my /home_old to /home again and rebooted.

Now KDE is not working anymore...not even the KDE1.0-like graphic with no window resize/move i mentioned in the first post of the thread.

After staring some seconds at the (blank) display, a popup shows and tells me nautilus doesn't have the permissions to create its default directories inside my /home...so i think something went wrong when double-renaming my /home as root. That wise popup also suggested me to allow nautilus to create folders there by setting him the right permissions...but yet i don't know how

Start going through your log files and see what error messages are coming up. I would also attempt to run apt-get again and see if any other packages are drawn in.

I don't know how to read system logs in linux (yah I know that's a shame) and have little time to do that (i should be working right now) so please let me know. I would have done it by myself btw.

And no, apt-get says everithing is just fine...

As i have some time i'll try to purge all of the GNOME packages as well as Maximus and UNE ones...maybe it's just a conflicts matter...is it a bad idea?

[oshunluvr]

Re: What's wrong with my KDE?

I should have been more clear: I suggested renaming your home, not /home. Your home is usually /home/<USERNAME>

Renaming your home does not require root status and I wouldn't recommend using root to do things that don't require it.

The permissions for /home should be drwxr-wr-w and owner/group should be root. Your home directory should have the same permissions but owner/group should be yours.

Log are in /var/logs. Read dmesg and syslog to start