GNOME panels have disappeared

carl h · #1 15th August 2005, 01:33 PM

After using GNOME for a week or two, I switched to KDE. I'm a Linux newbie so I was trying them both out. Now I've switched back to GNOME, all I get is the desktop. The panels at the top and bottom of the screen are blank, and there are no Applications/Places/Desktop menus. There were there the last time I used GNOME, so have I done something with KDE that might have upset it, or has something else gone wrong?

How do I get the panels back? At the moment I have to open a terminal and reboot, as I can't get to the logout menu.

Thanks in advance.
Carl.

tomcat · #2 15th August 2005, 01:57 PM

Log in as root and remove all hidden gnome related folders in your /home, e.g. /home/user/.gnome, .gnome2, .gconf, .gconfd etc. Then log in as normal user again.

jcwinnie · #3 16th August 2005, 01:13 AM

I follow those steps and it failed to resolve the problem.

tomcat · #4 16th August 2005, 09:13 AM

???

Please create a new user and log in with the new account. Does it have panels? Or are they mising there, too?

dnar · #5 16th August 2005, 11:35 AM

Open a terminal (right click on desktop), su, killall gnome-panel, logout selecting 'Save Settings". Does this help?

jcwinnie · #6 17th August 2005, 11:54 AM

tomcat -- New user unable to login with Gnome desktop, comes back to login prompt

jcwinnie · #7 17th August 2005, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dnar

Open a terminal (right click on desktop), su, killall gnome-panel, logout selecting 'Save Settings". Does this help?

The only way I know to exit is to type reboot from inside terminal since all I have is a white strip across the top and bottom of the desktop -- no menu.
Can I use "logout" from the command line?

jcwinnie · #8 17th August 2005, 01:31 PM

Another curious thing...

Add / Remove Packages
This screen shows Gnome as unchecked, even though I have it installed and 'yum groupinstall GNOME' confirms this.

If I check the box, it then goes into limbo, i.e.,

Quote:

Before modifying the packages on your system, package dependencies must be determined. This process may take a few minutes.

Ha-ha-ha, good one. 18 hours later and it still is checking dependencies.

tomcat · #9 17th August 2005, 09:40 PM

Try reinstalling the missing gnome parts, using yum. I suggest to install gnome-panel (which apparently got uninstalled).

yum install gnome-panel

jcwinnie · #10 18th August 2005, 12:12 AM

Thanks for the reply. The response to 'yum install gnome-panel' was "Nothing to do." Any other parts to consider?

Alerander · #11 18th August 2005, 01:09 PM

Maybe i can help you
you can right click on the "Panel" where your panel was last time and choose properoties. Choose transparent and then back to system-theme again, Maybe you can see your panel appear after these steps.
My english is poor, hope that you can understand me.

jcwinnie · #12 18th August 2005, 06:02 PM

Thanks for the reply, Alerander. I believe I understood your message. It perhaps is my lack of understanding about proper terms. I login as the Gnome user. A desktop appears with icons which I could click, some even work, others, e.g., "Start Here", don't.

There is a white bar running horizontally across the top of the desktop and another across the bottom of the desktop. No icons appear in either of those bar. Moving my cursor to different places where there use to be buttons for menus, functions, etc. and right-clicking does nothing. To exit, I have to point the cursor at a blank spot on the desktop, right click, select Terminal and type 'reboot' in the terminal window. This reboots the system and I can login as a KDE or XFCE user and use the system normally, e.g., as I am doing now to post this message.

In summary, no success from the way I understood and acted upon your suggestion.

tomcat · #13 18th August 2005, 07:39 PM

This is rather strange... did you add any updates lately? If yes, do you remember if they were Gnome related? If yes, I believe that it is a bug (I am almost sure that this is a bug) and you should maybe reinstall Gnome using yum and add your problem to Bugzilla.

Or have you removed some packages from your system?

jcwinnie · #14 18th August 2005, 08:16 PM

Thanks again for the reply, tomcat. I am unsure how to accomplish what you recommend, i.e., reinstall gnome using yum. yum groupupdate GNOME or yum groupremove GNOME (as prelude to groupinstall) fails.

tomcat · #15 18th August 2005, 08:44 PM

As root, run in a terminal "updatedb", then run "yum clean" and retry. Maybe that will get us to somewhere....