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Help! I killed KDE! [solved]


alkeli
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Ok, so I wanted to upgrade from KDE 3.2 to 3.4. I did a 'urpmi kdebase' and let everything install.

 

Unfortunately I don't know KDE very well and did it IN kde, which I think was my mistake. I'll post all the details I can:

 

I urpmi'ed everything, after which, I restarted the computer. Now when I rebooted, it went into the login screen, but it looked different and it showed ALL users, such as apache and things I don't normally log into, I only have 3 user accounts including root but there were dozens displayed.

 

So, I logged into my usual user account(I'll call it user1). So, I log into the user1 account and all that shows up is the blue background screen from the login, and a white borderless console window with a prompt, and that's it.

 

If I type in 'startkde', KDE starts up, but all my menues are gone, some stuff is still on my desktop, but everything else is gone! When I click on the star (KDE equivalent of the windows start button) there's nothing there but an empty bookmarks folder, quick browser, Run Command, Switch User, Lock and Logout. All my links to applications are gone, all my extra panels that were on my desktop are gone.

 

The worst part is, all my file associations are gone, so when I dbl-click on a folder, or a file, it asks me what to open it with, but the applications list is empty...

 

Can someone tell me if all this can be put back??? I need help here, I had it all customized with lots of stuff on here, and with one upgrade, it's all gone!

 

I hope someone can help me, I want it all back :cry:

 

Thanks in advance!!!

 

EDIT: Oh ya, and when I right-click on my desktop and click on "Configure Desktop", nothing happens. And when I right-click on my panel(taskbar) and select "Configure Panel", the window comes up, but it says "EMPTY PAGE"

 

Al

Edited by alkeli
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You might just need to remove the .kde folder from your home directory, and reboot and you should find all should appear again.

 

If not, then CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE to restart X, and see if it appears?

 

I've noticed this when upgrading.

 

The problem with all users, relates to mdkkdm, as devries suggests, check out the KDE 3.4 howto's. You have to remove mdkkdm and reinstall it again to reset it, plus the dependencies it removed, so make a note of these before removing it.

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Ok, I'll try it when I get home from work, thanks guys i reallly appreciate the help B)

 

You might just need to remove the .kde folder from your home directory, and reboot and you should find all should appear again.

 

Deleting the .kde folder... will that delete all my previous settings and menus? Cuz I don't want that, I want the old ones back. I'll read more in the Workbench forum, I'll post up tonight what my results are.

 

:thanks:

 

Al

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Dont delete your .kde folder, just rename it .kde_old. When you restart KDE a new .kde folder will be created, but you can migrate (copy) color schemes, icons, and application setting that you want to keep from the olde kde directory to the new KDE folder. Once you have your new KDE desktop set up, then you can delete the old .kde_old folder.

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Dont delete your .kde folder, just rename it .kde_old. When you restart KDE a new .kde folder will be created, but you can migrate (copy) color schemes, icons, and application setting that you want to keep from the olde kde directory to the new KDE folder. Once you have your new KDE desktop set up, then you can delete the old .kde_old folder.

 

Ok, but what will that do? If all the settings are already in the folder, what will creating an empty folder, and moving everything back in do? I don't know what the difference would be, but I'll try it...

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Oh thank the linux gods, I fixed it!!!!

 

For future reference, here's what I did to fix it:

 

USING: Mandrake 10.1

UPGRADED: from 3.2 to 3.4

 

from outside of KDE and X in console as root:

 

-renamed (each)$HOME/.local to $HOME/.local-old

-ran "kappfinder"

-ran "update-menus -v"

 

urpme mdkkdm

urpme kdebase-kdm

urpmi mdkkdm

 

Rebooted, started X

 

(through X)logged in as root, logged out, rebooted.

(through X)Logged in as normal user, logged out and back in as normal user.

 

Now everything's back to normal only better,

Rebooted, and logged in, everything was back, so sweet and much faster now, and all my old apps are back and my file associations!

 

Thanks for your help guys, but it's all good now, I hope this helps someone else in the future.

 

Al

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Dont delete your .kde folder, just rename it .kde_old. When you restart KDE a new .kde folder will be created, but you can migrate (copy) color schemes, icons, and application setting that you want to keep from the olde kde directory to the new KDE folder. Once you have your new KDE desktop set up, then you can delete the old .kde_old folder.

 

You right don`t delete your .kde folder, just rename it .kde_old.

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Small info related to the start post: I just updated from kde 3.4 to cooker's kde 3.5 and did the urpmi from within kde, no problem at all.

 

Linux works with inodes, which link to the files on the disk, and which are unique for each single file. If a new file overwrites a file in use, the old name is disconnected but the inode (reference) remains, so any program that needs it will get it. Any program that gets started later will only get the newer version of the file/lib/program.

This is one of the reasons Linux doesn't require reboots often, contrary to MSWin for instance, where you can't delete a file that's in use, it will be locked. On Linux, the file name reference will be deleted, the inode will remain until the program that uses it stops using it - the kernel keeps track of this.

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