Magical disappearing desktop

[worker201]

This evening, I encountered the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. I was making a new file manager bookmark using PCManFM. Suddenly, the PCManFM window disappeared, and so did my wallpaper. In its place was the wallpaper from my Gnome installation. Also visible on the desktop were other standard Nautilus icons, including trash and icons for removable media. Right-clicking on the desktop caused the Nautilus menu to appear, not the OpenBox menu. My LXPanel was still around, though, and it still worked. I opened PCManFM again, and it seemed to be working normally.

That was just too weird for words, so I logged out of my LXDE session, and then logged back into an LXDE session. My wallpaper was back, with no icons on the desktop, and right-clicking the desktop now opens the OpenBox menu. However, my panel is different. It is set to be transparent, showing the color of the wallpaper underneath - which normally is black. But now, the wallpaper you see through the panel is the wallpaper from my Gnome desktop. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it for myself. Here's a screenshot of the lower right hand corner of my desktop, showing the clock, volume, and wireless on the panel, and a bit of my wallpaper above it.

I'm thinking it's time to get rid of Gnome.

transparent panel showing mysterious wallpaper

transpanel.png (87.27 KiB) Viewed 4726 times

[worker201]

After removing a lot of Gnome components, including the session manager and nautilus, my panel is back to normal. And I now have a completely different login screen.

Can I get rid of gdm, or do I need it still?

[rockdoctor]

Can I get rid of gdm, or do I need it still?

If you're using lxdm (or any other display manager other than gdm, or no display mamager at all) you can get rid of gdm

[amjjawad]

After removing a lot of Gnome components, including the session manager and nautilus, my panel is back to normal. And I now have a completely different login screen.

Can I get rid of gdm, or do I need it still?

Hi,

I'd like to understand more about your issue please.
What Linux Distribution are you using?
Have you installed LXDE Desktop while you are on another session? from your post, it seems that you are having both?!
Is the problem solved or not yet?

Thank you!

[worker201]

I am running Fedora 15. I was running Fedora 14 (and 13 and 12) before that. The default desktop environment before 15 was Gnome2. With the upgrade to Fedora 15, the default desktop environment became Gnome3 Shell. I disliked Gnome3 Shell, so I installed KDE. I disliked KDE, so I uninstalled it. Then I tried LXDE. I like it much better. The reason I was able to switch desktops so easily is that the Fedora login screen allows you to choose which desktop to use for that session. For a short time, I had Gnome3, KDE, and LXDE all installed at the same time.

However, I noticed almost immediately some weird things happening. Mostly like the screenshot above, with little bits of Gnome creeping into LXDE. I have since decided that I did not need to keep the Gnome desktop system around, and uninstalled most of the key components. This seems to have cleared up the problems, as I have gone a week without any bizarre happenings.

[amjjawad]

I am running Fedora 15. I was running Fedora 14 (and 13 and 12) before that. The default desktop environment before 15 was Gnome2. With the upgrade to Fedora 15, the default desktop environment became Gnome3 Shell. I disliked Gnome3 Shell, so I installed KDE. I disliked KDE, so I uninstalled it. Then I tried LXDE. I like it much better. The reason I was able to switch desktops so easily is that the Fedora login screen allows you to choose which desktop to use for that session. For a short time, I had Gnome3, KDE, and LXDE all installed at the same time.

However, I noticed almost immediately some weird things happening. Mostly like the screenshot above, with little bits of Gnome creeping into LXDE. I have since decided that I did not need to keep the Gnome desktop system around, and uninstalled most of the key components. This seems to have cleared up the problems, as I have gone a week without any bizarre happenings.

Now, that makes sense
I have come across some issues similar to yours. I haven't test that myself but apparently, LXDE and GNOME are not good friends. My guess and from what I read so far is the problem is GDM doesn't work quite well with LXDE and that is causing some problems. I wish I could try that (install LXDE on top of GNOME/Unity) but I'm busy with Testing Lubuntu 11.10 these days.

So, so far so good? any more weird issues?
Pleas keep us updated and I appreciate your explanation