The problem is that gnome-terminal-server is not starting: root@hpre:~# locate gnome-terminal-server /usr/lib/gnome-terminal/gnome-terminal-server the reason is that LANG or LC and/or LC_ALL are defined badly. The question is *where* are these variables ill-defined. locally or globally.
One quick thing to do is create a new user and see if Gnome-terminal will start there. If it does, then the problem is with your account definitions. (e.g. .bashrc or .profile ) what I would suggest is: egrep 'LANG|LC[_=]' .??* 2> /dev/null | less check the output... other places to look for global causes are /etc/default/locale, /etc/rc , /etc/bash.bashrc and /etc/profile* -- Stephen Samuel http://www.bcgreen.com Software, like love, 778-861-7641 grows when you give it away