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SOLUTION: delete user account hidden file ".kde"; reboot. All functionality restored (and all keyboard shortcuts I'd set up lost - but they weren't working anyway). So...I almost certainly did NOT have to reload the whole system. Sigh.
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Yesterday, I loaded a bunch of Compiz-related stuff via Adept. Initially, all was well. Soon, however. the system slowed to a slow crawl, and became unusable. I spent a lot of of time staring at a colorless screen (everything was grayscale). Looking at the system monitor graphs, I could see that RAM was full up continually, and that virtual memory now had about 450Kb more stuff there than I'm used to seeing. I guessed that Compiz was hogging RAM, leaving little for anything else. Would explain the non-usable system I was experiencing. All applications were having to essentially run out of virtual memory. Awful experience.
I uninstalled everything Compiz-related, via Adept. Things got really bad then. I could boot, but had littl control of anything window-related. Desperate to get back to work, I ultimately reloaded the whole system (what choice did I have - after booting I couldn't DO anything). More of a hassle by far than it should have been.
I'm back now, but I created a user account called "tom". I run a partitioned Kubuntu (also a dual boot with WinXP), and so have user acct. data in separate partition. The old acct. name was "tomc". I didn't realize that this would result in two user acct. directories in /home. Duh.
So...I loaded Firefox and Thunderbird and got them instantly working in "tom" by copying the hidden profile folders over from "tomc". But that wasn't ultimately practical, since all my working files are in "tomc". I changed the user acct. to "tomc", and moved the profiles back.
All's well, except I now have much of the same non-functionality I had yesterday, relative to windows behavior. Windows have NO captions. I cannot close them, or resize them. Programs load in behind the active window, and I cannot get to them. This is a disaster.
What can I do about this non-functionality? I'm still desperate to get back to work. help help help!!!
SOLUTION: delete user account hidden file ".kde"; reboot. All functionality restored (and all keyboard shortcuts I'd set up lost - but they weren't working anyway). So...I almost certainly did NOT have to reload the whole system. Sigh.
===========
Yesterday, I loaded a bunch of Compiz-related stuff via Adept. Initially, all was well. Soon, however. the system slowed to a slow crawl, and became unusable. I spent a lot of of time staring at a colorless screen (everything was grayscale). Looking at the system monitor graphs, I could see that RAM was full up continually, and that virtual memory now had about 450Kb more stuff there than I'm used to seeing. I guessed that Compiz was hogging RAM, leaving little for anything else. Would explain the non-usable system I was experiencing. All applications were having to essentially run out of virtual memory. Awful experience.
I uninstalled everything Compiz-related, via Adept. Things got really bad then. I could boot, but had littl control of anything window-related. Desperate to get back to work, I ultimately reloaded the whole system (what choice did I have - after booting I couldn't DO anything). More of a hassle by far than it should have been.
I'm back now, but I created a user account called "tom". I run a partitioned Kubuntu (also a dual boot with WinXP), and so have user acct. data in separate partition. The old acct. name was "tomc". I didn't realize that this would result in two user acct. directories in /home. Duh.
So...I loaded Firefox and Thunderbird and got them instantly working in "tom" by copying the hidden profile folders over from "tomc". But that wasn't ultimately practical, since all my working files are in "tomc". I changed the user acct. to "tomc", and moved the profiles back.
All's well, except I now have much of the same non-functionality I had yesterday, relative to windows behavior. Windows have NO captions. I cannot close them, or resize them. Programs load in behind the active window, and I cannot get to them. This is a disaster.
What can I do about this non-functionality? I'm still desperate to get back to work. help help help!!!