recovery from stupid error

[skaller]

On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 23:19 -0700, Daniel Robitaille wrote:
> skaller wrote:
> 
> >>This is question for -users, not -devel. Please, next time post there.
> >
> > It is not a question. It is a bug report.
>  >
> 
> have you filled it to the bugzilla?  That's the best way to
> reach the developpers if you think it is a bug they should look into.

If you know what to file the bug report against, which I don't.
Someone who understands the login process and Gnome
better than me would be in a better position to check
what happens and identify the problem, eg Jeff,
then they could file a report more useful than one
I could file. 

I really don't know anything about Gnome: although
I'm a programmer, Gnome isn't my field. For my own
package I sometimes get complaints like 

"It doesn't work"

and usually need several email exchanges before I get
a log of the build or problem I can examine, to
find what the cause of the problem is.

In that role I'm the expert and the user is just
a user .. in the case of the problem above, I'm
the dumb user. I don't have any idea how to 
retrieve a log of the problem, for example,
or even if it still exists now I'm up and running:
startup problems are always a pain, because typically
you need your system already running to even ask for help.

I came VERY close to reinstalling Hoary from my CD.

On possible solution is an automatic backup of the users
configuration data with an option to recover it -- however
I have no idea how to identify which files in a home
directory are critical (all the ones starting with . perhaps?)

Anyhow, I'm not asking for help, I'm reporting a problem
I had which I managed to recover from but which someone
else might not -- it's a bootstrapping issue: without
a desktop you can't use the desktop tools to reconfigure
things, or even ask for help, so getting the desktop up 
and running is critical.

No doubt this is why there is a 'failsafe session' option
in the login .. the problem is it didn't actually work.

Perhaps Ubuntu should create a 'recovery' user, so destroying
the one and only real user doesn't stop you getting into 
a desktop?

-- 
John Skaller <skaller at users dot sourceforge dot net>

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/attachments/20050714/9fabdfd2/attachment.pgp