Re: gnome2 desktop switcher/pager kill/reinstall

[Ben FrantzDale <bfrantzdale hmc edu>]

On Wed, 2003-03-26 at 08:50, Haines Brown wrote:
> > > 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

A panel crash loop? What do you mean by that?

> 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.

I'm guessing that some bug caused both misbehavures.

> 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. 

There is also a ~/.gconf directory. If you delete that and your .gnome
directories, that should reset everything gnome-related.

If you go to ~/.gconf/apps/panel/profiles/default/applets you will find
a bunch of directories corresponding to the
/apps/panel/profiles/default/applets folder in gconf-editor. I'd suggest
looking through gconf editor to find which directory goes with the
offending pager and then try removing it manually.

> 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

It's part of the gnome-applets package, I believe.


--Ben

> 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
>