Oh no! KDE gone?

[rbrown3rd]

As you can probably tell I am a complete newbie. I have 7.10 installed on my laptop and this desktop. The desktop is a dual boot setup with WinXP. Over the last two weeks I have tweaked and tinkered loving every step but I have tweaked and tinkered myself into a corner. Thinking it was a smart thing I checked out KDE 4 and set myself going down a slippery slope which ended up with this dual boot system with an operating WinXP and a Linux instance with no desktop.

I can chalk up the loss of all my tweaking to a learning experience but I am terrified of messing up my dual boot system so that neither WinXP nor Linux, Kubuntu, will run. What should I do besides worrying myself silly to at least get back to a KDE desktop without destroying my whole system?

[arochester]

Re: Oh no! KDE gone?

A bit unclear about this.

this dual boot system with an operating WinXP and a Linux instance with no desktop

What HAVE you got? Do you mean that you have no GUI? If this is what you mean then have a look at http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3085112.0 and http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=690760

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Oh no! KDE gone?

I guess I don't know enough to answer that. My Linux option brings up a command line prompt. What do I do next? I am going now to read your reference.

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Oh no! KDE gone?

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserv-org returns "No Xserver installed." I think removing KDE4 also removed KDE 3. I am guessing that with the recoverability of Linux I might be able to save this with some expert advice.

[arochester]

Re: Oh no! KDE gone?

Try installing xserver-xorg. (It may not be enough by itself.) From the prompt, when connected to the 'net, issue the command:

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg

...Then try the reconfigure again.

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Oh no! KDE gone?

Some good news. After the sudo apt-get install xserver-org I tried a startx and got to my desktop but it does not look exactly like I had configured it but just the fact that I am using Firefox in Kubuntu makes me much happier than I was thirty minutes ago. Not sure where to go next.

[arochester]

Re: Oh no! KDE gone?

it does not look exactly like I had configured

Did you have a video card driver installed? It may need to be reinstalled again. If you have either Nvidia or ATI then try Albert Milone's script called "Envy" which you can get from http://www.albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html .It works for MANY people but NOT ALL.

Did you use Compiz-Fusion? It will need to be restarted.

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Oh no! KDE gone?

I reconfigured again and selected Nvidia as my driver and the desktop starts. I get a couple of popups saying malformed url system or something like that. Also, my desktop background, the default one is missing. I tried to use the system settings to get it to work but no joy there. My desktop is functional but seems to still need a bit of patching up.

Update: I did have Envy installed and the Nvidia drivers seem to be still working.

[arochester]

Re: Oh no! KDE gone?

Try running Envy again and reboot...

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Oh no! KDE gone?

I tried installing the Nvidia drivers again with Envy and it failed.

python pulse.py nvidia
root@rbrown3rd-desktop:/usr/share/envy# python pulse.py nvidia
ENVY ERROR: Your Operative System does not seem to be supported by Envy

I seem to have the right screen resolution and hardware acceleration seems to be working. Odd because I used Envy initially to install the Nvidia drivers. That was when I first set the system up. Didn't have a problem with the OS then.

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Oh no! KDE gone?

When I select logout I no longer have all of the options I used to have. There is only one and that is "Log Out." Restart, Shutdown, etc. are gone.

I ran Synaptic just to see what would happen. It shows all of my programs as being still installed but if I try to run one or two such as Ksmoothdock from the terminal window they fail. Hmmmm. Still happy to be on the desktop even if it is crippled.

Browser, Firefox, works perfectly. File Manager Dolphin works fine. Should I keep testing programs or wait for further instructions?

Hmmm, can't find Konqueror. That's odd. But, then it is all odd to me with my lack of experience. I have a lot of Unix experience but none with Kunbuntu. My experience was with Sun Workstations decades ago.

[MoonRise]

Re: Oh no! KDE gone?

Maybe this will help: http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3089767.0

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Oh no! KDE gone?

Interesting, <alt>F2 does nothing. Also, when I reboot I have to startx manually. No login screen appears. After I startx the splash screen runs normally but the desktop is still missing a lot of stuff including Konqueror. Most of the installed applications run though.

Seems to me like parts of KDE are missing. The wallpaper files, Konqueror, perhaps others. I can view files on my Desktop using Dolphin but they don't show up on the Desktop.

All of my .kde files seem to still be there.

[Jean]

Re: Oh no! KDE gone?

Over the last two weeks I have tweaked and tinkered loving every step but I have tweaked and tinkered myself into a corner.

Lol.

I got the idea of trying sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop but I'm not an expert by any means, so beware of people giving 'advice' like me.

[MoonRise]

Re: Oh no! KDE gone?

Over the last two weeks I have tweaked and tinkered loving every step but I have tweaked and tinkered myself into a corner.

Lol.

I got the idea of trying sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop but I'm not an expert by any means, so beware of people giving 'advice' like me.

Actually I think you can do something like that or to reconfigure which should allow you to set everything back to "normal". Never have done that though, so yes I agree, beware