Desktop screwed up.

[Adam Stokes]

On Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:40:41 -0500
Aaron Konstam <akonstam at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> On Sun, 2009-06-28 at 12:56 -0400, Sam Varshavchik wrote:
> > Aaron Konstam writes:
> > 
> > > Somehow I have screwed up my gnome desktop. I don't see the items
> > > in my Desktop folder , I don't see my file folders for the
> > > computer of my home folder , I have no Trash icon nor do I see
> > > mounted external devices.
> > > 
> > > Can someone tell me how to fix this situation in F11?
> > > 
> > > Finally I get nothing when I right click on thee desktop. How can
> > > I fix that?
> > 
> > Sounds like Nautilus and/or Gnome is messed up. There could be
> > endless reasons for that. You could spend a week trying one thing
> > or another, randomly, to no effect.
> > 
> > It's probably easier just to nuke everything from high orbit,
> > first, and then recover. Rename your home directory, then create a
> > new, empty, directory in its place, taking care to use the same
> > userid and groupid.
> > 
> > Once you log in you should then get the default, initial, Gnome
> > desktop. Then, you can manually move stuff over from your old home
> > directory into your new one, one at a time.
> > 
> I came to the same conclusion and did essentially what you suggested
> and I am back with what I need. That is what I get for trying to use
> the Configuration editor.
> 

fwiw, next time just check to see if nautilus is even running. and if
its not enable it through your terminal and make sure its in your list
of startup applications in 'preferences' -> 'sessions startup'