loss of window controls

[railrider1972]

Hoping someone can help with this because I really don't want to reload my USB drive. For no apparent reason, all of my windows in Knoppix 6.0.1 have lost their controls. The ones at the top right of the window. There is no minimize bar, max/normal box, or even the X to turn off the window. I am hoping that someone found a solution to the problem and will tell me an easy fix.
I can, of course, erase the entire drive and reload it, but I would prefer not to lose all of the customizing that I have done. The data on it is safe since I make a backup copy of the knoppix-data.img file; so, that is not an issue.
Please, help.

[klaus2008]

I think that you should try to start the window manager openbox in a command line. Open a terminal and issue
/usr/bin/openbox & If there is already a window manager running, you will get an error message. Otherwise you should get the controls.

[utu]

You might also try control-alt-backspace.

In any event, I would like to know what conditions caused your problem.
Please keep us informed.

Since you have a backup, you might try to see if just a
reboot solves a temporary X problem. It's your call on this.

[railrider1972]

<span style="background-color: #99FF99;">Tried the reboot both warn and cold. no effect. i did notice that the comp-z splash screen no longer appears during the boot up process. I believe that that may be the root cause (pardon the pun) of the failure. If so, how do I get comp-z working again?</span>

[railrider1972]

Tired both ideas. The first one gave the error message and said that a manager is urnning; the second appeared to restart xorg, but still left off the window controls. If I can't resolve this in a few days, I will erase the USB drive that my Knoppix runs off of and reload it from the CD. Hoping that 6.4 comes out in a DVD format first.

[utu]

Hello, again, railrider1972.

We don't have many clues to help you with.
Did your USB ever work right? When was this? (K!6.4.4 came out in Feb 2011)
Did you make a copy of knoppix-data before things went bad?
Do you know how to rejuvenate your set-up using knoppix-data?
What were you doing when things went from good to bad (if ever)?
Where does your DVD comment fit here, anyway?

[klaus2008]

A long time ago I installed Knoppix 6.0.1 on an SD card. Today I added the latest NVIDIA graphics card driver (270.41.06) because my 220GT graphics card does not like the nv xserver driver. Furthermore I think that the proprietary driver is needed if I want 3D graphics. A side effect was that windows had no controls if I used compiz fusion. I always issued
openbox --replace &Today I learned that compiz fusion of Knoppix 6.0.1 shows windows without frames if I use the default color depth of 16. I have to issue the cheat code depth=24 at the boot prompt. In my case I use the command
knoppix xmodule=nvidia depth=24 at the boot prompt in order to get compiz fusion working.

[railrider1972]

A few more clues.
Yes, the USB chip worked fine up until last weekend. It failed to work correctly after I issued a shut down command, and for no apparent reason, instead of shutting down, it restarted itself. Was not paying that much attention and pulled the chip out during the reboot process. Has not had window controls since then. Thinking that a file may have either been corupted or possibly erased.
knoppix-data.img was backed up after this since it does look like I will be reloading the chip from the DVD to fix the issue. Still hoping for a solution from here first.
Just wondering, if a blank chip is created, and the knoppix-data.img just be copied to it and work, or does knoppix have to create it and update it;s scripts to know it is there?

[utu]

@ railrider1972

I think I would probably re-format the USB and start all over. Also,
I'd advise you not to pull the USB while it is being accessed, and
I'd advise you to make a tar.gz backup of KNOPPIX-DATA every once
in a while in the future, while things are still working ok.

I think I've read that pulling a USB when it's in a read or write process
can cause some real problems with the data on the USB.

If your back-up was made after the problem arose, I expect it may not be
any help in getting things going. It may be bad for a number of reasons.

Sorry to be so pessimistic. Maybe Klaus2008 can give you better news.

[railrider1972]

Thanks for the advice. I though i'd have to reformat the drive. I also heard the same thing about USB drives. fortunately, I checked the improtant data in the IMG file and it is unharmed.

By the way, I can find the CD version of 6.4.4, but can't find the DVD version. Does anyone know if it is out yet, and if so, where to download it?

[utu]

You might try ftp://ftp.knoppix.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/knoppix/

If that's not satisfactory, then choose from
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html

I have used my LiveCD to successfully reformat a broken USB with gparted,
on the Preferences menu.

Make sure your USB is large enough to hold the DVD version.

And, good luck.

[Werner P. Schulz]

A server in Germany is

http://ftp.uni-erlangen.de/mirrors/knoppix-dvd/

You cannot download DVD 6.5; it is special edition sponsored by a Linux magazine.