KDEInit could not launch '/home/myusername'

[ubromtoo]

have just installed Kubuntu-Desktop on Ubuntu Dapper 6.06 ,

the desktop looks normal but the System Menu doesn't work :

clicking on 'Home Folder' gives:

KDEInit could not launch '/home/richard'.

clicking on 'Storage Media' gives :

Malformed URL media:/

and so forth... also, when I try to look at what is in the trash bin, this :

Malformed URL trash:/

Newbie asking for help

[lec2004]

Re: KDEInit could not launch '/home/myusername'

looks like a bad install. Did you use the live or alt CD. I prefer the alt installer. Much more stable. Live install tends to be too buggy for me at least. reinstall would probally be the easiest thing to do. If someone has an alternative I would to hear about it as it has happened to me before a couple of times.

[askrieger]

Re: KDEInit could not launch '/home/myusername'

All of those "important system places" work for me, so I think that there's something wrong with your kubuntu-desktop installation, but I have no idea what went wrong. Based on your post, I am assuming that you used Synaptic to install the package "kubuntu-desktop" from the dapper repositories. Is this correct? If not you may not have installed all the necessary libraries. I am also assuming that you did NOT remove ubuntu-desktop. If you did you may have removed some things that you need for Kubuntu as well. I am further assuming that your system is completely up to date, i.e. you are actually running the current, updated version of Ubuntu 6.06-1. Is this correct? If not, that might account for the problem.

The next thing to look at is your configuration of KDE and, in particular, of Konqueror as a file manager. Can you start konqueror from the K menu (it's under internet, because it's both the default file browser and the default web browser). If you can start konq, can you see your home directory? Can you get a directory tree by clicking on F9 when Konq is the active application? If so, can you get to /media?

[ubromtoo]

Re: KDEInit could not launch '/home/myusername'


It was installed by typing the following command :

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install Kubuntu-Desktop

Once the problems became apparent, I uninstalled it with :

sudo aptitude remove Kubuntu-Desktop

and then re-installed it, but things were the same.

As far as updates for Ubuntu 6.06, I check for updates daily, and

decline very few updates, only the ones which seem unneeded for

my purposes.

Yes, I can open Konqueror, either from the panel Icon, or from the

K-menu, but that's as far as it goes : if I click on any of the Icons , an

error message is all that happens. Opening Konqueror and pressing

f9 does nothing.

Maybe I should uninstall again, and then download an ISO and burn

the disc , etc., but I'm hoping for a magic-bullet fix lol.

Thanks for your comments

[askrieger]

Re: KDEInit could not launch '/home/myusername'

only the ones which seem unneeded for my purposes.

How can an update, in a Long-Term Support release, to a program that you already installed, be unneeded for your purposes? On the other hand, if your purposes change, e.g. from being a happy Gnome user to wishing to try KDE, that upgrade might have been critical (although I doubt it). Most of the Dapper updates are for security purposes, but some are bug-fixes.

if I click on any of the Icons

Which icons are you referring to?

Normally, pressing F9 makes a directory tree appear on the left side of the window a la M$ Explorer or Nautilus (at least, when I used it 5 or 6 years ago).

The only other thing I can suggest before taking more drastic action would be to remove and reinstall Konqueror. Innocuous as it seems, Konqueror is actually the essence of KDE. It appears that your KDE is hosed, for reasons that are obscure to me. Personally, I have two boxes on which I have gone in the opposite direction, adding "ubuntu-desktop" on top of a Kubuntu installation. Both seem to work fine. Although both are running Feisty rather than Dapper, I see no reason to believe that KDE and Gnome can't co-exist. So what you set out to do OUGHT to work.

[ubromtoo]

Re: KDEInit could not launch '/home/myusername'

Askrieger :

Here is an example of an update which I did not install :

"LIBFREETYPE6
FreeType 2 font engine, shared library files

The FreeType project is a team of volunteers who develop free, portable and high-quality software solutions for digital typography. They specifically target embedded systems and focus on bringing small, efficient and ubiquitous products." Speaking as a newbie, do I need this? honest question.

As far as "what Icons?" , I don't know how to add a screenshot to this
post, so all I can say is that opening Konqueror gives a choice of several
Icons such as Home Folder, Storage Media, Trash, Applications,
Network Folders, and one or two others. None of them will click - open.

Now that I look more carefully, pressing F9 does indeed make a vertical
row of small icons appear on the left. Clicking on one of these such as the
"home" symbol does reveal a list of home-folder files, but clicking on any
one of the files just gives an error notification:

"KDEInit could not launch /home/richard/Crontabs" (for instance.)

By the way, am posting on Ubuntuforums, on KDEforums, and here,
with this problem. Here is the only place I'm getting a response, and I do
thank you for your questions and suggestions

[askrieger]

Re: KDEInit could not launch '/home/myusername'

Do you need Freetype6 ? Probably. I quote from below the part that you read:

This package contains the files needed to run programs that use the FreeType 2 library.

Since, in fact' the package was installed originally, some developer of some package that WAS installed did list libfreetype6 as a dependency. Therefore when an updated version is offered, ESPECIALLY IN A LONG TERM SUPPORT RELEASE, I think it worthwhile to install it. This even more true, when I DON'T know where it's being used.

At least we have now verified that both the keyboard and the left-click function of the mouse are working. That was not obvious until this point. I'm a little puzzled as to why you have either a crontab directory or file in your homw directory (It should be in /etc/), but that's irrelevant also. I still don't understand what's going on. Please, right click on a file, if you can see one, (the left pane shouldn't contain anything other than directories). You should get a context menu, choose an appropriate action and left click on that. We will then be testing both whether KDE is getting right clicks and if it is, does it do the right thing.

It's beginning to look as if the only reason that you got an answer, here, is that I'm too stupid to know when a problem is insoluable.

[askrieger]

Re: KDEInit could not launch '/home/myusername'

Well, I found your problem. It occurred to me that (just as a pedagogical example) I ought to check and see exactly which packages relied on libfreetype6, so you would learn, without too much pain, exactly how foolish it is to think that you know how important (or unimportant) a particular package might actually be. So I ran the console command "apt-cache rdepends libfreetype6". This lists the names of all the packages that depend on a particular package. Much to my surprise the list went on forever, or, at least, it seemed like that. So I ran the command again and piped the output to another piece of command line magic called "wc" that gave me the total number of packages that relied on libfreetype6. The answer was 811. It included everything from "abiword" and "amarok", to "zapping" with most of KDE, and a goodly fraction of Gnome and XFCE in between. Thus, even if libfreetype6 is NOT the direct cause of your problem, something similar that you failed to update because you didn't know how important it is might be.

So my advice to you in one sentence is: KEEP YOUR SYSTEM UP-TO-DATE. And remember, just because you don't think something is important doesn't mean it isn't.

By the way, this example was so blatant, that (seeing that I'm in paranoid debugging mode), I'm now wondering whether this whole thread was a forum quality control test by an Ubuntu Guru. If so, I failed because I was lazy. If you really are a noob, I apologize for being lazy and not providing you with the help that you deserved.

[ubromtoo]

Re: KDEInit could not launch '/home/myusername'



I really am a Noob, and I thank you for your persistant attempt to help

me. You do not seem lazy at all.

The info you got on Libc6 is certainly an eye-opener , and so I've installed

all the listed updates (total : 8 updates ). Then , rebooted the PC , and

changed session from Ubuntu to Kubuntu.

As soon as the Kubuntu desktop showed up, right in the center of the

screen was a notice that said "You must be ROOT to run this program"

or maybe it said "application"...anyway it says that I must be Root.

So what's up with that?

If I right click on one of the Icons, it still won't open. However, per your

suggestion, if I right-click on a file and select "open in a seperate window"

then the file will open.

I'm too much of a noob to know about the root thing. Is that the same as

sudo ? Please help me to get in touch with my inner Root (lol).

[askrieger]

Re: KDEInit could not launch '/home/myusername'

Indeed, prefacing commands with the word "sudo" (Super User DO) is how you get to: be "root", have administrative privileges, be the superuser. After you enter a command prefaced by "sudo" from the command line, you will be asked for your password. You will then be allowed to use sudo without being asked again for your password for 15 minutes (you can change this time, if you wish). In order to run a GUI program as "root", right click on the desktop, left click on "Run Command" and then enter "kdesu <whatever>", or to edit a file as root, navigate in Konqueror to the appropriate directory, right click on the file and choose :Edit as root" from the context menu, but be sure to backup the file first.

As to your specific question, (it probably said "application", not program), which program were you trying to run? Many of the things that a user innocently tries to do have unforeseen consequences that can clobber your computer, and so they should be run under sudo to show that you really, really mean it.

For example, suppose you innocently "correct the time" backwards then modify a file before the interval you backdated the time has elapsed. Which version is newer? How should the guy who wrote the file saving routine have compensated for that? Let me assure you that it is a royal PITA for the coder, the application testers, and the code maintainers. They all think that instead of merely typing "sudo", you should be hung by your thumbs until you recant and promise never to do that again.

On the other hand, if it really showed up before you had a chance to do anything at all. You have a permissions problem. Did you create a new user for KDE so that you have one Gnome user and one KDE user? If so, you may have to add your alter-ego to the admin group and the /etc/sudoers file.

[ubromtoo]

Re: KDEInit could not launch '/home/myusername'

It showed up before I had a chance to do anything at all. I'm the only user on this computer. I just log out, change the session from Gnome to KDE at the log-in screen, and then log back in again. If a permissions problem is involved, please tell me what to do about it.

Also, for the moment I've removed ("uninstalled") Kubuntu-Desktop from my PC , but very much wish to get it back once again, this time in full working order.

Is there a better way than " sudo aptitude install Kubuntu-Desktop " ?
Or would it be better to install Kubuntu-Desktop , and then , as you suggested,
remove and re-install Konqueror ? I'd try that, but don't know how...

is it just " sudo aptitude remove Konqueror " and then re-install ?

Kubuntu strongly interests me, and I don't wish to give up on it.
Help with this problem is much appreciated !

[askrieger]

Re: KDEInit could not launch '/home/myusername'

Personally, I'd use "apt-get" rather than "aptitude" because I don't trust Aptitude's artificial intelligence, but other than that your installation procedure looks good to me. Removing and re-installing kubuntu-desktop would, of course remove and re-install Konqueror. So simply re-installing Kubuntu desktop at this point should suffice. If not, there is definitely something wrong, but at this point, I'm totally clueless.

[ubromtoo]

Re: KDEInit could not launch '/home/myusername'

Good News !! (though I don't understand it lol )

Askreiger :

I re-installed Kubuntu-Desktop , but it was the same old story;

however.....

while in Ubuntu, just decided to go into Users&Groups and create another

user, call it User 2. Then when I logged out of Ubuntu (as User 1, same as

always), but logged in to Kubuntu as User 2, everything works properly !!

Maybe I should mention that I gave User 2 System Admin privileges . At

any rate, now things work just fine- but only for User 2, still same old

problems for User 1. Could you shed any light on this?

P.S.: So far have found only one thing which doesn't work properly :

K Menu > System Setting > System Admin > Users & Groups

gives this :

The module Users & Groups could not be loaded.

Diagnostics is:

Possible reasons:

-an orphaned control module
-you have old third party modules lying around

Check these points carefully and try to remove the module mentioned
in the error message. If this fails, consider contacting your distributor
or packager.

all that is Greek to me.

Despite that small difficulty,(I will search the forums) , things are now much

better. If you can shed any light on any of the above, much thanks. Your

questions and comments have been helpful.

[askrieger]

Re: KDEInit could not launch '/home/myusername'

The module Users & Groups could not be loaded. ...

That message often appears after updating KDE. I've found that messages like that usually (but not always) disappear after rebooting the computer.

When a new username works while an old username doesn't, it usually indicates that the KDE configuration files are "messed up". There is a KDE configuration utility that is normally run the first time that you use KDE, however, I believe that it is NOT installed by default in Kubuntu. Instead Kubuntu defaults to a standard configuration for all new users. One option would be to run that initial configuration script under your original username. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of the @#$% script! Another alternative would be to copy the entire /home/<2nd-username>/.kde/ directory tree over to the first user. That will probably cause a disaster because everything will have the wrong username.

An only slightly less drastic approach would be to rename the first user's ~/.kde/ directory as ".kde.bad"/ or something, and let the system reconstruct it. That way, if the reconfiguration fails, you still have the (faulty) original to repair. I'll continue my (so far, fruitless) search on the KDE For System Administrators website.

[ubromtoo]

Re: KDEInit could not launch '/home/myusername'

Askreiger :

Renamed the 1st User "~/.kde " directory as per your last post, and

it worked like a charm !

While in Ubuntu , renamed the file then switched to Kubuntu still

as 1st User , and now things work fine .

Made the change about five minutes ago, and haven't had time

to make a thorough check, but so far everything looks good.

This is a huge improvement !! Thanks indeed