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I had a challenge with an Nvidia API conflict after installing VMware Player tools. After doing some research, I found this, resolved the issue by purging the driver installed by VMware and installing a new one from the command line. The gui is back but it is not functioning correctly. These are the symptoms:

  • After entering my password, the 4/5 icons of a hard disk, spanner and wrench settings logo, globe and Desktop come up. The KDE logo does not.
  • Normally I have 4 desktops. Now I am down to one. If I try to increase the number beyond 1 through Pager settings, the application of the settings is ignored.
  • Any software I open is static in one place and stack at 0,0. Sizes of the windows as last used is intact but all positioning starts at those coordinates.
  • Borders and what not for resizing, moving, minimising or other manipulation of a program window don't exist.
  • All closing of programs has to be done clicking Quit through the menu. Keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+Q will not work and the X button top right does not appear.
  • Whereas I can enter my password with no challenge on start-up, using the keyboard is intermittent. Editors like Kate or Kwrite will take data. But if I start a software that requires root permissions, the dialog box for the password will not accept input.
  • Any software I launch the tab for the program does not appear in the task bar.

I do have a backup but it only covers /etc/, /home/, /usr/ and /var/ plus their subdirectories respectively.

Is there a re-install I can deploy to fix this? Any help someone can offer for a solution will be greatly appreciated.

Update 25 December

I went through the steps again of purging the nvidia drivers and sudo apt-get install nvidia-current instead of sudo apt-get install nvidia-current-updates-dev. Also re-ran sudo apt-get install nvidia-xconfig. Also followed this article How do I restore my KDE desktop to default? to set aside plasma settings and/or all settings under ~/.kde/. No joy.

When the system starts up with a successful password entered, what is checked in order for the KDE logo to appear? As mentioned above, all 4 other icons load all right. The KDE logo does not. I'm wondering if there is a criteria there not satisfied and will serve as a clue.

@Ash: VGA section of lspci -v:

    07:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G71GL [Quadro FX 3500] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 032b
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
        Memory at fa000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Memory at fb000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        I/O ports at dc80 [size=128]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at fce00000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: nvidia
        Kernel modules: nvidia_304, nouveau, nvidiafb
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dwlamb
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  • Maybe try resetting KDE settings, as per: http://askubuntu.com/questions/109530/how-do-i-restore-my-kde-desktop-to-default ? – Ash Dec 24 '13 at 04:57
  • @Ash. Tried both methods that url talks about; renaming /.kde/ etc and deleting plasma settings. The desktop. still acting the way I describe. Thank you for the input – dwlamb Dec 24 '13 at 20:03
  • Hmm...how did you reinstall the nvidia drivers? sudo apt-get install nvidia-current? Did you do sudo nvidia-xconfig after that? If you do lspci -v | less and search for VGA, do you see "Kernel driver in use: nvidia" or similar in the VGA section? – Ash Dec 25 '13 at 08:05
  • @Ash: See update as of 25 December. Thanks for the input. – dwlamb Dec 25 '13 at 16:13
  • I've decide to wipe the disk and re-install. Thanks for the help Ash – dwlamb Dec 26 '13 at 15:26

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