[McIDAS #EFX-757750]: Troubleshooting CentOS-6.1-64bit

Hi Kwan,

re:
> I am kind of procrastinating with upgrading to Windows 10 because the
> upgrade process is long, and I want to work on making images for cyclone
> Winston first.  But it would make sense that I should upgrade soon.  I have
> read that I will need to reinstall VMware Player after upgrading to Windows
> 10.  Have you attempted upgrading to Windows 10?

Yes, and I reverted back to Windows 10 because my Bluetooth adapter was
not supported in Windows 10.  I bought a new combined WiFi + Bluetooth
card which I will install as soon as I have the time to uninstall the
existing Bluetooth and WiFi adapters and completely uninstalled Bluetooth
support in my Windows 7 environment.  Aside: I thought I told you this
in a previous email...

re:
> As for the problem I am having, I did get a login screen in CentOS VM and I
> logged in as Unidata McIDAS.  But then I did not get a drop-down menu on
> top.

OK.  This means that something in the desktop setup for your 'mcidas' user
got screwed up somehow.  This can be corrected, but you will need to be
able to login as a different user and become 'root' first.

re:
> I did set up one user account last time but looks like I have
> forgotten the password.

If you got the login screen, then you should see an "other" option to
login.  I would select "other" and then login as 'root'.  From the
'root' login you could proceed a couple of different ways:

- change the HOME directory for your 'mcidas' user

  This is the brute force method, but it can be the quickest way to get
  to where you want to be.

  Example:

  Assuming that the HOME directory for 'mcidas' is currently /home/mcidas,
  go into:

  System -> Administration -> Users and Groups

  and change the HOME directory for 'mcidas'.  You may have to create the
  new directory and NB: change the ownership to 'mcidas' and the group
  that 'mcidas' is in.

  Then logout as 'root' and log back in as 'mcidas' and see if your desktop
  environment gets created correctly.  If it does, then the remaining
  work will be to move the files that you created or modified in the
  old 'mcidas' HOME directory to the new HOME directory.

  If you want the HOME directory for 'mcidas' to end being the same as
  it was previously (e.g., /home/mcidas), then you will need to do the
  following as 'root' while 'mcidas' is _not_ logged in:

  - rename the original HOME directory to something new

    Example:

    <as 'root'>
    cd /home
    mv mcidas mcidas2

    Then change the HOME directory for 'mcidas' back to /home/mcidas
    via the System -> Administration -> Users and Groups interface
    and then rename the new 'mcidas' HOME directory to /home/mcidas.

- if you don't feel comfortable with the above method, you can try
  deleting the directories and files in the existing 'mcidas' HOME
  directory

  These will be recreated the next time 'mcidas' logs in.

  The files and directories to delete are:

  .xsession-errors
  .gconfd
  .gtk-bookmarks
  .gconf
  .gnupg
  .ICEauthority
  .gnote (may not exist)
  .config (may not exist)
  .fontconfig (may not exist)
  .gstreamer* (may not exist)
  .pulse (may not exist)

  I think that this is a comprehensive list, but I might be wrong.

  The idea is to get rid of all of the files/directories that have anything
  to do with the desktop environment and then let them be created as if
  the 'mcidas' account was brand new.

re:
> I cannot remember whether you have given me a tar file or zip file with the
> CentOS VM last time.  I have the VMare\CentOS 64-bit directory but I do not
> see a tar or zip file around.

The reason I asked is if things are munged too badly, you could always
drop back to an initial state by using the original VM image.  I don't
think that this should be necessary, but I am not 100% sure since I don't
know how/why the environment for your 'mcidas' user got messed up to
begin with.

Cheers,

Tom
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: EFX-757750
Department: Support McIDAS
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed