up vote 9 down vote favorite
5

I am really a newbie in linux. Finally my sister gave me my old laptop back and i decide to install kubuntu 11.10 on it. i am really happy with this linux distribution and i already have personalized it quite a bit.

but i also realised that linux is much more sensetive when you reboot it in comparison to windows! ;)

So, since i have switched off the laptop once with out properly press reboot in linux, the buttons and the writing in the windows in the very top seem as if they'd be too big. Looks like a bug actually to me. And if you make the windows smaller it looks really strange and the close and minimize and resize buttons disappear.

i have already once fixed this by inserting the kubuntu cd, but i forgot how i did that. i think it was something like restore distribuion or so, but all personalizations kept the same, only the windows were displayed normally (which i of course have intended!)

Excuse me, if i have expressed myself not quite clear. i hope someone of you can help me anyway...

Question: What have i done to restore kde?

Thanks in advance, Thomas

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up vote 10 down vote accepted

To reset you user's KDE modificatiosn to defaults open a terminal and type

mv ~/.kde4 ~/.kde4.old

Log off and log back in and all the KDE settings will be recreated fresh.

That will move the folder where KDE keeps his settings in to another folder with .old in the end of the name. When you login KDE will create a new .kde4 folder and all the settings used will be the default.

If you want to restore the previous settings you need have a backup in your home folder inside the .kde4.old folder.

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Hello, thank you so much, now everything looks like it should! :) – Thomas Mar 2 '12 at 22:56
    
Great, glad it helped. – Bruno Pereira Mar 2 '12 at 23:01
2  
@Thomas if the answer did help you, please consider on accepting this answer as the one you wanted, so that your question becomes a solved one. Thank you ;) – Marc-André Appel Mar 2 '12 at 23:12
    
Maybe this OpenSUSE post forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/… is worth reading as well? – Nikos Alexandris May 2 '13 at 8:11
    
@BrunoPereira What about access to data in ~/.kde(4)/share/apps/? – Nikos Alexandris May 7 '13 at 9:17
up vote 10 down vote

The above answer didn't worked for me.

I had fiddled with the panels and the solution provided here worked for me. For quick reference, I'm giving the steps below.

  1. logout your kde desktop
  2. open console session by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1
  3. give username and password
  4. rm -rf .kde/share/config/plasma-*
  5. now you can logout console session by logout command or pressing Ctrl+D
  6. now go back to your default graphical session by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F7
  7. now login and you will see your fresh new default panels
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I didn't try this but it seems to me more appropriate, i.e. simply remove the configurations that concern KDE's appearance (as it seems to be what the OP was seeking). Most of the instructions found in fora, contain I think the "danger", for a new user, to let him (re)move permanently (access to) the complete ~/.kde directory which might hold "sensitive" data, e.g. Kmail e-mails (...one of the most important directories that holds also data is ~/.kde/share/apps). – Nikos Alexandris May 7 '13 at 9:16
    
This saved me for a 2nd time! It's really annoying that some (problematic?) plasma widgets can cause a non-working KDE. – Nikos Alexandris Dec 16 '13 at 11:43
up vote 4 down vote

On KDE Plasma Version 5.9.4 (for Kubuntu 17:04):

EITHER

rm ~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc

OR (in order to preserve the old configuration file just in case):

mv ~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc ~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc-old

Then log out of KDE and log back in.

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up vote 0 down vote

It's September, 2016. This question is quite old but still valid. So, I'm answering it which applies to current KDE which is KDE5/Plasma.

Only deleting .kde/share/config/kdeglobals file do the "reset" trick. So,

$ rm .kde/share/config/kdeglobals
$ logout

Then, just login back.

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up vote 0 down vote

The Above works in OpenSuSE 13.2 as well and appears to be the best answer for Plasma except there are .kde and .kde4 and .kde5 spaces for 13.2 and I should imagine others there could be the same. So 4. becomes:

rm -rf .kde4/share/config/plasma-*

As always I would recommend copying the three files found this way to an ../old directory first. Also I would point out the source of the problem is it is incredibly easy to hit the "x" in the bottom part of the plasmoid desktop folder so lock your widgets at all times!

Another issue is the non-obvious drag and drop you have to hover at the edge of the desktop folder being careful to not hit the x and pull the tab around to pull the desktop folder probably why the folder disappeared. I agree I cannot find another method documented which strikes me as odd.

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up vote 0 down vote

I had a similar problem.

I fixed the problem by going on system settings, then to "Display and monitor" and changing the compositor. This can be done by changing the "rendering backend"

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