Hi Everyone,

I installed Deb 6.0.4 on an old Dell Inspiron 2650 laptop and everything seemed 
to go well, except...  I'll try to describe a problem I'm experiencing, 
evidently with X:  The windows are all blank.  Even at the login screen, I 
can't see the "username,other" selection list -- just a blank rectangle for the 
login window.  The Debian starry desktop background picture does show up 
however.  When I wave the mousepointer over the login window, it selectively 
shows -some- of the contents, enough that I can see to select my username, type 
my password and log in.

Once logged in, it's more of the same in Gnome.  I can see the starry desktop 
background picture, and I can see the menu bars, but I can't see the icons 
(Computer, Home, Trash) on the desktop until I waive the mouse pointer over 
them.  I also cannot see the Applications, Places, and System menus on the left 
side of the top menu bar.  But I can see the network, date, sound and window 
selector widgets on the right side of the menu bar.  When I click on any of the 
Applications, Places or System menus, I don't see anything drop down -- but if 
I pause the mouse over where I expect the menu to be, tool-tips do appear, 
suggesting that the menu is there.


I am able to ctrl+alt+f* into terminal windows and use them perfectly well.  No 
problems at all here.

When I was booted off the CD to install Debian, I didn't have any trouble with 
the GUI environment.  Now I'm trying to figure out what is wrong with this 
fresh install.

A little more info: I installed from a CD iso that I burned, and the laptop had 
a running network connection (ethernet) when I installed Debian.  Additional 
packages were downloaded from the Internet.  Again, the installation process 
didn't seem to have any problems.


I'm somewhat of a Linux newbie (especially to Debian), but I can provide 
further information if anyone can suggest what commands to run and what output 
to provide.  Also, because I'm having trouble describing my problem, I've also 
struggled to Google it and find existing information on the subject.  If anyone 
has pointers, I would appreciate it.


Thanks very much!

Jim

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