Can't approach my HOME directory anymore

[johandulac]

Hello,
A few weeks ago I installed Suse 10.2 with KDE desktop. Searching for a photo viewer that has more or less equal possibillities as Irfanview for Windows I found MIRAGE. It was possible to crop and resize photo's however batch rename and batch resize were lacking. I made the program my default viewer. The result was a disaster. Trying to approach my HOME directory resulted in starting MIRAGE and showing a photo that was in my HOME directory. When I closed the program I was back on the desktop with no way to approach any of my files.
I de-installed MIRAGE and when I tried to open my home directory this turned out to be impossible. The following info appeared:

"KDEInit could not start Mirage"

Even when I tried to start a DVD with software like supplied with a computer magazine the same info appeared.

I anyone could help me with a solution for this problem I would be very glad.
Please consider that I am quite new to Linux and do not (yet) have experience to work from a terminal.

[oldcpu]

I de-installed MIRAGE and when I tried to open my home directory this turned out to be impossible. The following info appeared:

"KDEInit could not start Mirage"

What application is giving you this error message? Konqueror when being used as a file manager? If so, try opening it up as a browser, and then go adjust your settings, to remove Mirage. Possibly Konqueror > Settings > Configure Konqueror > File Associations .

Or try going to Kmenu > Personal Settings > KDE Components > File Associations and remove Mirrage.

As always, a real drastic approach is to use a terminal (konsole) and rename .kde to .kde-bak, but that will cause you to lose ALL your KDE desktop settings, so only useful as a very last resort.

[johandulac]

Hello,
Thank you for the reply. What I called my "Home directory" is what I get when clicking on the home icon, which I now understand is called the file manager.
I removed Mirage from all file associations. The result is still the same. When I try to open the file manager I get:

KDEInit could not start Mirage
KDEInit could not find Mirage" executable

Renaming KDE should be the solution then. However I don't know how to do that in the terminal. Could you please be so kind to state what I have to type/write in the terminal?
That I lose my desktop settings is not too bad, but I hope that my files (documents, photo's) will not be lost.

best regards
Johan Dulac

What application is giving you this error message? Konqueror when being used as a file manager? If so, try opening it up as a browser, and then go adjust your settings, to remove Mirage. Possibly Konqueror > Settings > Configure Konqueror > File Associations .

Or try going to Kmenu > Personal Settings > KDE Components > File Associations and remove Mirrage.

As always, a real drastic approach is to use a terminal (konsole) and rename .kde to .kde-bak, but that will cause you to lose ALL your KDE desktop settings, so only useful as a very last resort.

[oldcpu]

Renaming KDE should be the solution then. However I don't know how to do that in the terminal. Could you please be so kind to state what I have to type/write in the terminal? That I lose my desktop settings is not too bad, but I hope that my files (documents, photo's) will not be lost.

oK, as a note, this is a drastic step. Make certain you do not have anything stored on your desktop, that you do not want to lose. Your desktop will be restored back to a default setting.

Also, note you can always go back to the original desktop, by putting the name back.

So, reboot your PC, and when the grub boot menu appears, type "level 3" in the options line. This will boot you to an ascii login prompt. Login as a regular user johandulac. (I am assuming you are user johandulac, ... type type your real user name there (in place of johnandulac), and also in my examples). Also type your regular password when you log in as johanandulac.

I can't remember if you need root permissions for this. I don't think so, but to be certain, do this as root.

Type:
su (in this case enter the root password)
mv /home/johandulac/.kde /home/johandulac/.kde-bak

Then, if that move of the .kde directory was successful, reboot as follows (you do need to be root to reboot):

shutdown -r now
This will reboot your pc. This time do not type "level 3" upon booting.

Note you can go back to the old, by repeating the above process, but instead typing:
mv /home/johandulac/.kde-bak /home/johandulac/.kde

[johandulac]

Thanks a lot oldcpu for the detailed description. Indeed I got a new KDE desktop, however the "Mirage fault" still existed. Even from this new KDE desktop I could not approach my home directory.

What I finally did to be able to continue without re-installing Suse 10.2 is following:

Logged in as root I could transfer all my files from my home directory to the home directory of a new user/account I made
There was some hassle with "not having the rights to open/change files" but, being the root, I could solve that problem.

I did it all with the GUI as I can't yet work from the terminal.

Best regards
Johan Dulac