I had a challenge with an Nvidia API conflict after installing VMware Player tools. After doing some research, I found this, resolved the issue by purging the driver installed by VMware and installing a new one from the command line. The gui is back but it is not functioning correctly. These are the symptoms:
- After entering my password, the 4/5 icons of a hard disk, spanner and wrench settings logo, globe and Desktop come up. The KDE logo does not.
- Normally I have 4 desktops. Now I am down to one. If I try to increase the number beyond 1 through Pager settings, the application of the settings is ignored.
- Any software I open is static in one place and stack at 0,0. Sizes of the windows as last used is intact but all positioning starts at those coordinates.
- Borders and what not for resizing, moving, minimising or other manipulation of a program window don't exist.
- All closing of programs has to be done clicking Quit through the menu. Keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+Q will not work and the X button top right does not appear.
- Whereas I can enter my password with no challenge on start-up, using the keyboard is intermittent. Editors like Kate or Kwrite will take data. But if I start a software that requires root permissions, the dialog box for the password will not accept input.
- Any software I launch the tab for the program does not appear in the task bar.
I do have a backup but it only covers /etc/, /home/, /usr/ and /var/ plus their subdirectories respectively.
Is there a re-install I can deploy to fix this? Any help someone can offer for a solution will be greatly appreciated.
Update 25 December
I went through the steps again of purging the nvidia drivers and sudo apt-get install nvidia-current instead of sudo apt-get install nvidia-current-updates-dev. Also re-ran sudo apt-get install nvidia-xconfig.
Also followed this article How do I restore my KDE desktop to default? to set aside plasma settings and/or all settings under ~/.kde/. No joy.
When the system starts up with a successful password entered, what is checked in order for the KDE logo to appear? As mentioned above, all 4 other icons load all right. The KDE logo does not. I'm wondering if there is a criteria there not satisfied and will serve as a clue.
@Ash: VGA section of lspci -v:
07:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G71GL [Quadro FX 3500] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 032b
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
Memory at fa000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
Memory at fb000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
I/O ports at dc80 [size=128]
[virtual] Expansion ROM at fce00000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: nvidia
Kernel modules: nvidia_304, nouveau, nvidiafb
