Can't get beyond KDE desktop screen. [Solved]

[linuxphoenix]

Dear Friends,
I successfully installed Ubuntu 9.04 on my PC. Works fine. Decided to add Kubuntu as well using apt-get install kubuntu-desktop. Still fine. Rebooted and logged into a kubuntu session. Tried changing a few things in the K Control Centre (window appeance, effects etc). PC hung. Rebooted. Now I can't get past the KDE screen which shows that the desktop is loading. The hard disk icon appears and after that nothing loads for half an hour (I rebooted at this point). Tried using Ubuntu recovery at boot. No luck. Logged into an Ubuntu session and re-installed kubuntu-desktop. Didn't help. Removed kubuntu-desktop completely and re-installed it. Still can't get to Kubuntu.
Any suggestions would be welcome. How can I remove Kubuntu completely and re-download it through apt-get? Removing kubuntu-desktop and other kubuntu packages using Synaptic does not seem to remove kubuntu completely.
Thanks.

[dibl]

Re: Can't get beyond KDE desktop screen.

Since you barely got started with KDE, the simplest thing is probably to get back to the default KDE desktop. At the "greeter", open the little menu and choose "Console Login", and log in there, and then issue

mv .kde .kde_bak20may09

Then you can either

sudo shutdown -r now

to restart the machine, or simply

sudo /etc/init.d/kdm start

to start the GUI and log in. You'll get a default KDE desktop with no custom settings.

In System Settings, be a little cautious -- try changing one setting at a time, and test it to make sure your hardware can execute it.

[linuxphoenix]

Re: Can't get beyond KDE desktop screen.

Dear Dibl,
Thanks a lot for the command line magic. Worked perfectly fine. I am writing this in Kubuntu. However, couple of small problems. The Kickoff button does not open any menus when I click on it. And the Desktop folder area shows a message "The process for the desktop protocol died unexpectedly" and there are no desktop icons. Could you help, please.
Thanks.

[linuxphoenix]

Re: Can't get beyond KDE desktop screen. [Solved]

I rebooted into Kubuntu and all problems have disappeared.
Thanks.