5

I was doing 

xkill

In a terminal window to close a non responsive program but clicked my Desktop instead of my program now all the icons and everything are gone, and restarting didn't fix it. What the hell did I do, and how do I fix it?

Tim
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David
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  • You should use `sudo killall` and not `xkill` to kill an application. Also, install `htop`, run `sudo htop` and then you can use F9 and then 9 and then press enter and it will kill the app. – mchid Sep 12 '15 at 03:34
  • You should be able to switch to a tty text console by pressing CTRL+ALT+F2. Do that and login with your username and password. Then, type the command `startx` and you should see relevant info about why it's not starting up. It should start on CTRL+ALT+F7 or CTRL+ALT+F7. To see the readout, go back to CTRL+ALT+F2. – mchid Sep 12 '15 at 03:39
  • please post any errors – mchid Sep 12 '15 at 03:40
  • Run the following command: `dpkg-reconfigure x11-common` select **console users** and then try running `startx` again. And don't use sudo to run startx. – mchid Sep 12 '15 at 04:00
  • Also, use `ls -la | grep Xauthority` to check the ownership permission on your `~/.Xauthority` file it should be owned by your user and not root. – mchid Sep 12 '15 at 04:06
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    What is your window manager btw? on Unity, it simply killls nautilus. – Jacob Vlijm Sep 12 '15 at 09:04
  • why would you do startx with sudo? – mchid Sep 13 '15 at 20:03

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