Desktop disappeared in KDE, can I get it back?

[aschueler]

At first I thought this could be a worm, now I am not so sure.

Yesterday I was configuring the desktop in KDE, thumbing through the 3 themes prepackaged with SuSE. I picked one, then I heard the speakers make a funny noise, and the desktop disappeared (ie, where it has a few directories I made on it, and the hard drive etc).

When I clicked on an item in the toolbar, then IT disappeared.

Now whenever I log on as root or the user I was logged in on, there is no background, but the toolbar does show up. I cannot run any programs on the toolbar -- when I click once on something, nothing happens. When I click a second time, the toolbar then disappears.

I am left with a blank gray screen and a mouse pointer, and NOTHING else.

I alt-f1 out and do a halt command to get it to work.

I do not have gnome installed, but loading the windows maker program seems to work. It seems to be just KDE.

Any ideas? Hopefully not ANOTHER reinstall

Thanks for help

[bmxface]

hmm im not sure....ill Ponder on this. and from my knowledge....theres no such "worm" for linux.

[Dolda2000]

Something really weird must have happened to your settings. Did this happen while you were logged in as root or as the user?

[aschueler]

Logged in as a user only.

I am only using root (as recommended, which is odd for me lol) to install stuff or make major changes.

I did change the background to a jpg I downloaded (not code), then moved the jpeg to another directory. I thought this could have done it (much later I thought this), but this again was not as root, and root is definitely affected in the same way.

Hopefully I can remember how I got my sound and video working if I have to reinstall.

Anything I can do guys?

[Dolda2000]

Do you have any precious settings that you wish to save? If not, try removing all KDE settings, making them reset once you log in:

rm -rf ~/.kde* ~/.qt

[aschueler]

That didn't work, assuming that command is meant to be run from the root directory as typed.

The other weird thing is that after I enter my login stuff, the dialog box that usually shows up as KDE is botting (like where it says starting network services, etc) doesn't appear either.

[Dolda2000]

Sorry, but then I can't help you further; I don't use KDE, actually. Wait and see if someone who actually does replies to this thread.

[bmxface]

i USED KDE but not any more....the only thing i can think of is it might not have all te dependancys. when you installed did you uncheck anything?

[aschueler]

Nope, things were working just fine until I messed with the themes, then all hell broke loose.

I actually just reinstalled, figured I couldnt even get in to mess with the preferences or install packages, even with the CD. Something got corrupted, who know what. Anyway, it works fine now, reconfigured everything.

Will be really careful with data for a while just in case this happens again

[bmxface]

well, at least you didnt give up on linux like some people do when they cant figure something out.