Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 10 - INSTALLATION AND ADMINISTRATION 04-08-2006 Installation Manual page 933

8 If the desktop could not start because of corrupt configuration files, proceed with
Section 52.4.3, " Login Successful but GNOME Desktop Fails "
Section 52.4.4, " Login Successful but KDE Desktop Fails"
52.4.3 Login Successful but GNOME Desktop
Fails
If this is true for a particular user, it is likely that the user's GNOME configuration files
have become corrupted. Some symptoms might include the keyboard failing to work,
the screen geometry becoming distorted, or even the screen coming up as a bare gray
field. The important distinction is that if another user logs in, the machine works nor-
mally. If this is the case, it is likely that the problem can be fixed relatively quickly by
simply moving the user's GNOME configuration directory to a new location, which
causes GNOME to initialize a new one. Although the user is forced to reconfigure
GNOME, no data is lost.
1 Log in as root.
2 cd to the user's home directory.
3 Move the user's GNOME configuration directories to a temporary location:
mv ./.gconf ./.gconf-ORIG-RECOVER
mv ./.gnome2 ./.gnome2-ORIG-RECOVER
4 Log out.
5 Have the user log in, but do not allow him to run any applications.
6 Recover the user's individual application configuration data (including the Evo-
lution e-mail client data) by copying the ~/.gconf-ORIG-RECOVER/apps/
directory back into the new ~/.gconf directory as follows:
cp -a ./.gconf-ORIG-RECOVER/apps ./.gconf/
If this causes the login problems, attempt to recover only the critical application
data and force the user to reconfigure the remainder of the applications.
(page 934).
Common Problems and Their Solutions
(page 933) or
933