Karmic Koala desktop only shows wallpaper, nothing else

I recently upgraded my eeepc 1000HA to Karmic Koala (9.10) and now I can't use the desktop. It boots fine and lets me login fine. It even uses the pretty new GUI to do all that.

But when I get to the desktop, I just see the wallpaper. Nothing else. No menu bar at the top of the screen. Nothing at the bottom of the screen. I can't launch any apps, or even shut the system down without hitting the power button. If I right click on the desktop, I can create a folder and thus gain access to the file system. But apart from that, the system is more or less useless.

I thought I could edit the xorg.conf file, but there is none.

I'm a linux newbie and completely stuck.

I've googled this without success and I've tried the Ubuntu forums without any help either.

Can anyone here help me get control of my computer again?

nedlud

Posted 2009-11-06T09:30:24.760

Reputation: 123

2There is a "osoverflow" and is called SuperUser... they'll migrate your question there in no time :) – Palantir – 2009-11-06T09:31:37.430

But, just like Stack Overflow, Super User is not a forum... If that sounds odd, then be sure to read the FAQs. (The FAQ does in fact mention more sites.) Also please associate your accounts at http://stackoverflow.com/users/51882?tab=accounts Thanks.

– Arjan – 2009-11-06T09:42:31.540

This is a dupe of that question here: http://superuser.com/questions/61508/karmic-erased-my-desktop

– innaM – 2009-11-06T11:17:39.273

I'd think editing or creating an xorg.conf is not needed as you do see the wallpaper. But given Sniek's answer I might be wrong; http://superuser.com/questions/66646/karmic-koala-desktop-only-shows-wallpaper-nothing-else/66683#66683

– Arjan – 2009-11-06T12:12:43.467

Answers

Try this (it will reset gnome's and most gnome app's settings):

start your machine (but do not log in)
Ctrl+Alt+F1
login
mv .gconf .gconf.corrupted
mv .gconfd .gconfd.corrupted
Ctrl-Alt-F7
login
hope that it got fixed

NEVER use a command given to you before knowing exactly what it does.

Tarnay Kálmán

Posted 2009-11-06T09:30:24.760

Reputation: 3 457

1This worked perfectly. Thank you. Very happy now :) – nedlud – 2009-11-07T05:34:23.133

Press Alt+F2 and type gnome-panel.

You should see the panel appearing on your desktop.

Mahmoud Hossam

Posted 2009-11-06T09:30:24.760

Reputation: 1 070

I had this happen to me when I upgraded to .. err ... I think 8.10. Alt-F2 doesn't work in this case. – innaM – 2009-11-06T11:16:02.507

try running this command from a terminal instead? – Mahmoud Hossam – 2009-11-06T15:32:56.713

Weird solution, but I had the same and it seemed that my resolution was set way to high. So I managed to reset the resolution by guessing where the menu was on the top left. ;)

You can also go to terminal and reconfiguge xwindows to use a different resolution. This was on an older TFT panel I use in my serverroom...

Pit

Posted 2009-11-06T09:30:24.760

Reputation: 882

So then actually you were seeing part of the wallpaper? Nice debugging! :-) – Arjan – 2009-11-06T12:08:59.700

Yeah, somehow it centered... The monitor (1024x768) was very old and dit not auto setup as the new ones do.... :) – Pit – 2009-11-09T11:07:44.707