Hi. To start with, I'm a complete newbie to Linux and will appreciate if you could explain me the possible solutions with a bit of extra detail please.
After restarting my system my task bar has gone completely missing. I'm on Mandriva Gnome. All I got is a desktop with icons on it, but no task bar or control menu whatsoever. Alt+F1 doesn't invoke anything, nor does Alt+F2. Actually I've tried quite a lot of key combinations but to no avail. The only way to start my browser I could think of was by putting an html extention on some file and launch it this way, so you can imagine how bad the situation is. I can't start Terminal and even if I could I don't know what to do anyway. I can't actually start anything. I can't create a launcher on my desktop as well (I came across some solution involving this). As soon as I minimise any window it simply disappears.
Any ideas what could have happened and how to make my system work again?
Regards: Kalin

Are you running Compiz by any chance? ( the cube )? If yes, I have seen this behavior if you have more than one desktop defined. If you switch to desktop 2, 3 or 4, the bars are missing, and it is not restricted to Gnome. I run KDE and XFCE, both desktops have the same behavior. The trick with compiz is to have just 1 desktop ( one four sided cube ) defined. I set up my desktops to never restart any running programs when I shutdown, and restart. That is not the default, so if that is the default on your system, a restart may be taking you back to the bar missing desktop. Not sure how to get back to desktop 1 though, if this is the case.

Now, to get a command prompt. Try ctrl + atl + f1 ( up to f6 ) should get you a full screen log on. Log in as what ever user you like. ctrl + alt + f8 should get you back to X. I am a little surprised alt + f2 didn't get you a Run command. That works most of the time.

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Hi, camorri, and thanks for your quick answer. No, I wasn't running Compiz, although I tried logging in with that as well.
Apparently the problem was more serious as my PC was running extremely slow or was not responding at all. Yesterday after copying a few files to my external drive only the Num Lock and Caps lock indicators on my keyboard were blinking, but the system was completely dead. After turning off my PC manually those two kept on being alight. Strange that innit?
So I decided my only option was to format and reinstall which is what I did and now am a happy person again.
I believe the culprit was the Wine emulator which I installed just before all the problems began. As I said I'm a complete newbie and could be wrong, but I would never ever again try using it and will install a proper XP alongside my Mandriva distribution. Unfortunately abandoning Windows entirely is not an option for me.
Thanks again. Wish you all good!
Regards: K

Consider installing a virtual machine. I run Sun's Virtual Box. I have a copy of WinXP installed on it. XP loads much faster in a virtual box than on a stand alone system. I have a scanner that is not supported on linux. Vbox + XP run the scanner like a charm. It also needs much less disk space.

I gave up on Wine since a lot of apps are not supported, or take a long time to get going. As you found out, you can hose a system easily.

Nothing wrong with dual boot though if you need a standalone system.

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