Can't add applets to panel in 10.04 :-(

[Josef Wolf]

On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 10:23:47AM -0700, NoOp wrote:
> On 05/15/2010 03:03 AM, Josef Wolf wrote:
> > On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 09:33:46AM +0000, Robert Spanjaard wrote:
> ...
> >> > Well, in fact, there _are_ two panels , one at the top (containing the
> >> > menus) and one at the bottom. Both panels were created at install, as it
> >> > was in 9.10. But I can't add anything to both panles. I deleted now the
> >> > bottom panel and can still not add anything to the top panel. Now, how
> >> > would I recreate a new panel?
> >> 
> >> Right-click on the top panel, and select "New Panel".
> > 
> > Doesn't work also. And there are two more defects:
> >
> > - I can not move the panel to another border, which worked fine in 9.10.
> > - The panel goes only about 60% of the screen width although I have clicked
> >   that is should run for the whole screen width.
> > 
> > Seems like there's something really messed up here. But this is a fresh
> > install. In the first install, even the menus with the applications and
> > settings were missing.
> Given it's a new install & not customized:

Since about 7.04, I use my customized alternate-cd with preseeded values
which have given me good install results during the last years.

With this customization (basically presetting some debconf values and
installing additional packages via "aptitude install") I experienced this
problem the first time.

My first assumption was that there are problems with my customizations.
I tried to fiddle with my customizations, but finally gave up and did a
fresh install with the original alternate CD. Same result: broken panel.

Then I downloaded the desktop-cd and again did a fresh install. This time,
the system was hung at the reboot after install (should not happen, IMHO).
After a power cycle, it came up, and after login I had completely empty
panles again. Same result again.

> $ gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /apps/panel
> $ pkill gnome-panel

Wow, this actually gives me a working panel! Everything is there. Although I
haven't done an exhaustive check, everything seems to be where expected at
least at first glance.

What gives? Why doesn't ubuntu come out of the box this way?

> Or, if you prefer basically the same in a gui (but also keep a backup of
> your original settings):
> <http://bithacker.posterous.com/restore-the-default-gnome-panels-in-ubuntu-10>

Hey, this post is about resetting the panel if you messed it up. I'd like to
stress the fact that I had the broken panel right after a fresh default
install where I did not even had a chance to mess around with the panel.

The point is that the system came out-of-the-box with a dead panel for me.
And this was not by accident, but was reproducible with some 15 installs
from scratch with both, alternate and desktop CDs.

Now the question is, what could be the cause for this broken panel.

But finally, you've found the right track. Thanks for your efforts, NoOp.
I hope we will be able to track this problem down to its roots.

So I'm going to do a fresh install now to get a broken panel again. Then I
backup my home directory and run the above commands. Hopefully the diff
of the old (broken) homedir and the new one will give some more hints to
track down the problem.