desktop appears different on reboot
Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: desktop appears different on reboot
started by: unh0ly_freak
Posted by unh0ly_freak on April 29 2007,23:52
DSL boots now, and I can get to the desktop ok. But every time I boot, the desktop is different.The first time, it had a weird lookin' background, but it showed the system stats in the top right corner and it showed the icons in the top left corner.
Second time I booted, it asked for me to make a password for root.. but the keyboard wouldn't work. Well, it worked 'cause I could hit NumLock and the light would come on.. but it wouldn't let me type anything.
The third time, it showed the weird background (black and white lined looking background).. showed the system stats, but no icons. I changed the background to the light blue color, then rebooted.
The fourth time, it had a darker background (not the one I changed it to, but it looked better than the original).. and also, no icons nor system stats were shown.
One of the times that I booted DSL (I forget which time), I clicked or right clicked on something for the icons and I clicked "Show Icons" (I think), but they didn't show up even after that. Is there something wrong with it, or do I just need to set up some stuff to get it to stay the same whenever I restart the computer?
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EDIT: I restarted the computer again and it went back to the original background, it showed the icons and the system stats.. but there was also a little box with some buttons and somethin' else in it.. I think it said "unmounted" and something else on the buttons.. then the mouse stopped working and the keyboard did too.. NumLock didn't even work (the light on the keyboard didn't turn on).
Does anyone have any idea why the desktop changes when I reboot (does/doesn't show icons and/or system stats.. shows that window with "unmounted" in it.. shows a different background.. etc)?? Or why the mouse and keyboard stop working??
Thanks in advance for any replies.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on April 30 2007,01:58
Did you enable your swap partition yet?If you have already, then maybe turning off "stats" from starting up might help. (Edit ~/.xinitrc and prepend a # on the line that has torsmo)
Posted by unh0ly_freak on April 30 2007,02:32
| Quote (^thehatsrule^ @ April 29 2007,21:58) |
| Did you enable your swap partition yet? If you have already, then maybe turning off "stats" from starting up might help. (Edit ~/.xinitrc and prepend a # on the line that has torsmo) |
How do you enable the swap partition?
And I have no idea what "(Edit ~/.xinitrc and prepend a # on the line that has torsmo)" means..
Posted by unh0ly_freak on April 30 2007,05:26
nevermind the swap partition question.. I got it figured out by reading this page.< http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/install_from_floppy.html >
But I have a couple more questions..
1: The system stats thing shows 851M/1.01G .. so I don't really have much room left for anything.. what are some of the things/programs/files/etc I can delete (without messing up the system) so I can have a little more space?
2: The little box in the bottom right hand corner with: dMix, M, floppy, and unmounted - in it.. what's that for and what can I do with it?
3: The system stats thing shows 20 or 30 somethin' processes running.. do I need all of these running? And if not, how do I turn some of them off? Also, which things are safe to turn off, if I 'am' able to end some of the processes?
Thanks again.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on April 30 2007,05:51
Edit means to use a text editor to open that file. I think theres a description in the Local Startup Documentation (see wiki, or the first popup in dillo) if you still don't get what I mean.1. That means 851M is free... plenty of space.
2. dmix controls sound; rest are for mounting.
3. Well... I suggested disabling that stats thing. I'd disable icons next (comment out xtdesk in ~/.xinitrc for disabling during startup)
If you want to stop them during runtime only, you can issue `killall torsmo` or `killall xtdesk` for example.
Posted by unh0ly_freak on April 30 2007,06:08
1: Ah, ok.. I thought that was used space. My bad.2: So the little slide bar is the volume?
3: I'm a bit confused on that part.. but I'll mess around and see if I can figure it out.
Thanks again for all the help.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on April 30 2007,06:18
2. Probably - if your sound is working already.
Posted by curaga on April 30 2007,16:07
You didn't get to type (or it looked like that) 'cause that's how password boxes are on Linux; you don't get stars, like *cough* win *cough* that would let someone see how many keys are there... Be sure to change your root pass to something you remember...With that mount app in lower left corner, you can, well, mount stuff..
Nano is an easy editor: click Aterm, type "nano /home/dsl/.xinitrc" and you're editing it. When done, control and x exits...
Prepend means like this:
this is a line before editing
#this is da line after prepending a # to it