No panels or icons on 9.04 desktop

[trevor4706]

I just did a clean install of Kubuntu 9.04 on my test laptop, a Dell Inspiron 1100 with integrated Intel 82845 video card. Installation went surprisingly well for the old box. On first boot everything went as advertised until the desktop came up. The colour is a bit off from what I expected from the screenshot on the Kubuntu site, but the really curious thing is that there are no panels of no icons at all on the desktop. I'm able to open the "Run" dialog by alt-f2, but cannot find any command that will get panels in place.

Anyone have a fix?

[The Liquidator]

Re: No panels or icons on 9.04 desktop

Everything you see on the desktop (panels, icons etc) are "widgets".

Right click on the desktop and select unlock widgets. Then from the same menu select add widgets. A pane will come up listing the available widgets. The panel is one of them. The desktop icons you see in screenshots is achieved by putting the widget "folder view" on the desktop.

Once you have the panel showing, right click on the panel and select panel options/panel settings and then add widgets. You can then put on the taskbar, launcher, and other icons. Remember that whenever you do this to select lock widgets afterwards to prevent accidental removal.

HTH

[trevor4706]

Re: No panels or icons on 9.04 desktop

Thanks, Liquidator, but I already tried that. Right clicking on the desktop does not bring up the menu you describe, as it does on my Kubuntu 8.10 installation on my "working" machine.

[dibl]

Re: No panels or icons on 9.04 desktop

trevor it might be the case that your installation CD was defective and didn't really complete the installation. Just guessing -- but it's hard to fathom how it would finish with no complete KDE 4.2 desktop screen, including default panel. You might want to review FAQ #1 in my signature link, and consider trying it again.

[The Liquidator]

Re: No panels or icons on 9.04 desktop

I would agree with dibl. If you cannot put widgets on the desktop then the assumption must be a defective installation. Before assuming that you need to re-download etc, you could from the grub menu boot into recovery mode. If you are connected to internet you could try the following:

Choose the command line option

type sudo apt-get reinstall kubuntu-desktop

Also, it might be worth doing

sudo apt-get update

then

sudo apt-get upgrade

Just in case there is a dodgy package for which there is an update that might fix it.

Once you have done that try typing startx and see what happens. I can't say it will work - it's just worth a go.

Ian

[trevor4706]

Re: No panels or icons on 9.04 desktop

dibl and Liquidator

Re-burned the CD as per FAQ #1 and reinstalled. Same result, but with a twist. Still no panels on the desktop. I wanted to open the "Run" box but accidentally pressed alt-F1 instead of alt-F2. To my surprise up popped the KDE 4.2 menu you normally get when you hit the KDE button at the left of the panel. Everything is there, but the windows in which programs open are very minimized and can only be maximized by dragging a corner. Using the maximize/minimize buttons results in the window getting smaller or disappearing completely, respectively.

I tried Liquidator's suggestion of "sudo apt-get update" then "sudo apt-get upgrade", with no change. I also tried "sudo apt-get reinstall kubuntu-desktop" but got an error message that the "reinstall" command doesn't exist.

Curious ...

[flarson]

Re: No panels or icons on 9.04 desktop

This is curious. The reinstall command that works is "sudo aptitude reinstall" but the kubuntu-desktop package is a meta package which simply depends on other real packages and reinstalling it will do nothing.

Did your $HOME exist before this install? Have you tried removing or moving your .kde directory to see if it gets recreated more effectively?

[trevor4706]

Re: No panels or icons on 9.04 desktop

I discovered the correct command to reinstall the kubuntu-desktop, and reinstalled it. I still have no panels. I also deleted the .kde directory as Mando_hacker suggested, it has been re-created but I still have no panels. By using alt-F1 to open the KDE menu I was able to open a console and install the Metacity window manager. Now at the login screen I can choose a Gnome session and it works perfectly. My preference is KDE4 and, given the problem with panels in the 9.04 installation, I don't think I'll be upgrading my working box from 8.10 quite yet.

[Fintan]

Re: No panels or icons on 9.04 desktop

I had something a bit similar. I couldnt move new panels to the side as I like to do.

So I copied my ~/.kde/share/config/plasmarc and plasma-appletsrc form my Kubuntu 8.10 (updated to kde4.2.2) user to my 9.04 user and now I have the desktop I want.

I know this is not a final solution but id did work.
Sometimes you just have to cheat a bit

[flarson]

Re: No panels or icons on 9.04 desktop

This does seem to me like an incomplete installation. Along the lines of apt-get upgrade I would suggest
sudo aptitude -f install
followed by
sudo aptitude -f full-upgrade

Can you use ALT-F2 and run konsole? kcmshell4 style?

Is dbus running?
ps ax | grep dbus

[dibl]

Re: No panels or icons on 9.04 desktop

Here's a thought -- could it be possible that you do have a complete installation, but the screen is set at some larger size and the panel is actually out of site below the bottom of the monitor? What is the monitor/display hardware? Maybe you could try some boot video options -- vga=788, vga=791, xforcevesa, etc. and see if it changes.

[trevor4706]

Re: No panels or icons on 9.04 desktop

Fintan, dibl and mando_hacker

Thank you all for your input.

Checked ~/.kde/share/config/plasmarc and plasma-appletsrc. ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-appletsrc was present, but ~/.kde/share/config/plasmarc was not. Copied ~/.kde/share/config/plasmarc and plasma-appletsrc from my working Kubuntu 8.10 box and pasted to the 9.04 installation. No change, still no panels.

Checked display resolution with xrandr. Here's what I got:

trevor@Kubuntu:~$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1024 x 768, maximum 1024 x 1024
VGA disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
LVDS unknown connection 1024x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
1024x768 60.0*+ 60.0
800x600 60.3
640x480 59.9

Don't know if either the "VGA disconnected" or the "LVDS unknown connection" are significant, but it looks like the resolution is correct.

Since this instqallation is on a test box, I'll give mando-hacker's suggestion a go tomorrow if no one has a better idea.

[dibl]

Re: No panels or icons on 9.04 desktop

VGA disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
LVDS unknown connection 1024x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm

I have never seen those messages -- I suspect my hunch about the mismatch between the screen size and the monitor setting might be right. If that monitor is not DPMS capable, then I think you need to add a "Display" stanza to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and insert the horizontal and vertical refresh rates, at least. I think you've got a 1024 x 768 screen running on a 800x600 monitor/display. :P

[Guest]

Re: No panels or icons on 9.04 desktop

I have the same issue on my Inspiron 1100

I know it is a clean install because they where all there on first boot. The resolution was off so I booted to recover mode and auto fixed X. The resolution was then correct but no panel or desktop or right click menu.

The screen resolution is not bigger then the screen since the mouse stops at the bottom.

I just ran the updates to see if one of the bug fixes helped and now I have no screen what so ever