hdwr HPQ DC7700S ix86 Core Duo
I have just updated this CentOS-5.3 box to 5.4. This process was not satisfactory. While the update packages all downloaded without problem the update process itself stalled at several points. By stalled I mean that at some point the entire process stopped for hours. The packages at which it stalled included evince, evolution, totem and vinfo. There may have been others but these I seem to recall.
Restarting the update process required that the existing update be interrupted with a <ctrl>C and yum-complete-transaction run. It took five iterations to get through to completion and in the end I first installed all the remaining packages one at a time directly from the command line using yum install packagename and then ran yum-complete-transaction until all outstanding transactions were cleaned up.
Now, while the system boots I have no gnome desktops for any of the users on this host. When root logs in all that is shown is a deep blue background and a wirefram outline of the Firefox web browser, a wire frame outline of an xterm window and an analogue clock. Left clicking on teh background displays a popup menu labeled "Tvm".
The mouse and keyboard work and when one clicks on the wireframs then immediately fill with the application background, the CentOS welcome back for FireFox and a black on white scheme for xterm. All the windows have teal menu bars. Further, it seems that I cannot switch between windows. If I try to enter a command in the xterm window then what I type appears in this compose window for squirrelmail.
I would like to get my previous customised desktops back, but first I would like to get the default to display. Are there any ideas on how to proceed?
Sincerely,