Can't login into Gnome after updates yersterday (10.04

[seanh]

On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 12:21:08PM -0700, NoOp wrote:
> gnome-power-manager always has give me fits on my desktop. You might try
> purging & then reinstalling. Note that doing so will also remove the
> ubuntu-desktop (no worries, you probably need to reload it anyway & you
> can safely run without it. If you leave it uninstalled, remember to
> reinstall prior to doing any version upgrade):
> 
> $ sudo apt-get -s purge gnome-power-manager
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer
> required:
>   libicns1
> Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
> The following packages will be REMOVED:
>   gnome-power-manager* ubuntu-desktop*
> 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
> Purg ubuntu-desktop [1.197]
> Purg gnome-power-manager [2.30.0-0ubuntu1]
> 
> Note that I'm using the '-s' in the command to "simulate" the action -
> remove it when you actually do it.
> 
> then:
> 
> $ sudo apt-get install gnome-power-manager ubuntu-desktop

Well, I think the problem may be with gconf or dbus or something, rather
than gnome-power-manager. g-p-m just can't load its settings, many other
apps (e.g. gvim, gnome-settings-daemon) are giving similar complaints
that they can't load their settings as well. Maybe I need to purge and
reinstall gconf and dbus?

The problem might not be with the packages, maybe my user's config files
are corrupt. When I get back in tomorrow I'm going to try logging in as
a different user and see what happens.