GNOME hangs

[Chris Jones]

> Eventually, that even didn't work and I was advised to do something
> which turned out to be disastrous so NEVER EVER issue the following from
> a root shell
>
> rm -rf $Home/*

I cannot say enough bad things about whoever suggested this to you (If they 
actually did, which I really hope they didn't)

I guess the INTENTION was to delete everything from the home area of some user 
account .  However,

1. The first problem is if you are logged in as root $HOME (yes, all upper 
case, see point 2 below) $HOME evaluates to /root. So all you end up doing is 
deleting all your root account config/account files.

2. The environment variable $Home does not exist ! It is $HOME. So if you had 
a clue what you where doing, and had tried

 > echo rm -rf $Home/*

first you would have discovered

#[root at localhost ~]# echo rm -rf $Home/*
rm -rf /bin /boot /data /data2 /dev /etc /home /lhcb /lib /lost+found /media /misc /mnt /net /proc /root /sbin /selinux /srv /sys /tmp /usr /var /winxp

i.e. as you discovered this command eats EVERYTHING...

Let this be a lesson.

Chris

p.s. I suggest ANY rm command you run as root should include the -i flag