[ale] Can't load gui

[Jim Moore]

Ah, yet another of my geriatric manuvers.
The other day I was working to set up the ale mail account in Mutt, 
following some online instructions.
I created a muttrc file and then (per the instructions), issued a Chmod 
600 command at which point all of my desktop shortcuts disappeared and 
basically the system became unresponsive.
Did a power off shutdown and attempted to restart.  The boot process 
proceeds until it attempts to start the gnome display manager - gdm. At 
this point a small box comes up that tells that the last session lasted 
less than 10 seconds.  In the corner is a small box which if checked 
show a series of five messages, to wit:


Msg 1.  /etc/gdm/PreSession/Default: Registering your session with wtemp 
and utemp

Msg 2.  /etc/gdm/PreSession/Default:running/usr/bin/sessreg -a -w 
/var/log/wtemp -u /var/run/utemp -x "var/lib/gdm/:0.Xservers" -h" "./ 
"::0" "myusername"

Msg 3  /gdm/etc/Xsession: Beginning session setup

Msg4  (gnome-session: 3226): libgnomeevfs  WARNING*** Unable to create 
~/ .gnome2 directory: Permission denied

Msg5  Could not create per-user gnome configuration directory 
'home/myusername/.gnome2/ Permission denied

I've considered issuing a chmod 777 to both the root and user .gnome2  
directories, but am hesitant as that may create further mayhem.

Would appreciate any suggestions.

jim moore

"as God granted man but limited intelligence, it seems unfair that he 
blessed him unlimited  stupidity"