Re: gnome2 desktop switcher/pager kill/reinstall

[Haines Brown <brownh hartford-hwp com>]

> > What is the configuration file that defines whether the pager is
> > displayed? My pager is broken and so I need to prevent gnome-panel
> > from trying to load it.
> 
> You could try running gconf-editor and seeing if you find it, but
> you shouldn't have to. Try killing it from the command line.

I was unaware of gconf-editor, but found it interesting. No idea how
to use it, but did find out that it names the windows switcher,
"pager_applet." Unfortunately, I've concluded that the name
"pager_applet" only refers to the xml default configuration files. I
compared them with backups and found nothing wrong with them.

Yes, you can RMB click on the pager to bring up the menu to remove the
applet from the panel, but that's not my problem. Because I have a
panel crash loop, I can't use my mouse. I have no choice
but to remove the pager from loading before I start the X server. I
assume the pager's "Remove from Panel" option has to define a value in
a configuration file somewhere, but I have yet not been able to find
it. None of the %gconf.xml files seem to have a value for whether or
not to display the panel (or any other applet).

None of the xml files associated with panel in user's account seem to
list the applets that should be displayed when panel loads. In any
case, I don't think "default profiles" is what I want.

> > The broken pager problem affects root and one user, but not
> > another user. How is that possible?
> 
> What's the behavior? How is the pager breaking?
> 
> It sounds like root and one user have broken config files, that's
> how it's possible. :-)

Well, yes ;-). Just rather surprising that user could damage one of
root's files.

Here's the gory details. I'm running RedHat 8.0 with gnome2. I decided
to try out IceWM. It has its own panel, and so I started IceWM I
acquired its panel and those of gnome as well. Because the bottom
panels were overlayed, I moved the gnome base panel to the right of
the display. 

Having both panels turned out to be foolish. For although things
went well at first, when I hit Alt-F3 to jump to a virtual desktop
(that's the keybinding I set for gome pager), that keybinding is
unfortunately defined differently for IceWM, and my typing Alt-F4
caused X to crash. I retreated to just gnome and am trying to get it
to work before playing with IceWM again.

Now when either user or root starts the X server, it works OK, but
when the panel crashes while it is loading, and I end up in a panel
crash loop (dismissing the crash dialog cause panel to continue trying
to load). The only escape is to terminate the X server
(Ctl-Alt-Backspace). 

I suspect the pager is the problem because a) the initial X server
crash occurred while I was using it, b) other applets and loaders pop
up on the panel, and the panel crash seems to occurs at the point the
pager would load. But I can't be certain. 

So my aim is to configure both user and root accounts from a console
(where I don't need X) so that, first, I can start X with the
pager already disabled ("removed from panel"), and, failing that,
start X with the panel disabled. I've been trying for some time in
many forums to find out how to do this, but so far no answer. Deleting
~/.gnome* files and letting them be automatically regenerated by
restarting X did not solve the problem. 

If windows switcher/pager is really an "applet," does that imply it
exists as a stand-along application? If so, what is its name (man and
rpm -q know nothing of all the variations of the name I could think
of). If an "applet" is built into panel, surely there's a panel
configuration file in each user's account that has a statemetn that
either loads or displays the pager, but I've not been able to find it.

If this affected just user, I might consider the risky task of
removing and recreating that account, but it affects root as well, and
I can't very well do that with root. 

I have backups, but no idea what files I should restore to fix this
problem. 

Haines Brown