I installed Mageia 2, but the window manager doesn't work

[claridon]

First, I have Linux installed on a machine that's a dozen years old --- it's got an
AMD Athlon 1.1GHZ processor and about 1G memory.

I had successfully installed and used Mageia 1 for several months, but I've not
yet been able to get Mageia 2 working. When I first tried to boot it up, I got as
far as the login screen, and after I logged in there, the screen went blank except for
a brief appearance by a narrow blue band at the bottom, which suggested the computer
was attempting to draw the taskbar. Also, I did hear the logon tones, so I was clearly logged in,
even though the screen was totally blank.

Next, I tried logging from Safe Mode. I found that Linux was indeed fully installed,
and I even found all the data I expected to find in my users' account. Further, when
I started X by entering the "xinit" command, an X-Window appeared in the upper
left-hand corner, as it's supposed to, and I was able to enter commands in it, which did
get properly executed by the system.

My conclusion: there's a probem in the window manager (KDE4)

Any thoughts on how to proceed Thx in advance for any and all
assistance.

Claridon

[claridon]

Original poster here:

I re-installed Mageia 2 with Gnome along with KDE4, and my computer had no trouble booting
up using GNOME as the window manager. Also, I recall that a few days ago, I tried switching over
to Fedora, and ran into identical problems when I tried using KDE4 as a window manager there. My first instinct
was to blame those earlier difficulties entirely on my old hardware, but in retrospect, I now believe
that all these difficulties stem from KDE4-related issues, although quirks of my old hardware may also
quirks of my old hardware may also have a role. I'll check further on the internet to see of similar
problems have been reported elsewhere. I don't like GNOME as much as KDE4, but I can make do with it
for a while because none of the work I'm doing is dependent on KDE4 software features.

Claridon

[oj]

did you have desktop effects enabled in your previous kde install? To test, try moving the .kde4 folder in your home, which will force the system to create a new default kde4 environment when you log in. (of course logging in to kde) you could log into gnome and change the name with a file manager graphically, or in a terminal mv ~/.kde4 .kde4.old. Either way, move it then try logging into kde and see what happens.