I am running kali linux, which has gnome. I just updated with
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
and that completed without incident, only a little while after did I realise that my bottom taskbar was missing(well technically just blank(black)). The one where running programs are displayed as well as the 4 buttons that allow switching between workspaces. I have searched around for the last hour, and tried a few things, such as
gconftool --recursive-unset /apps/panel && killall gnome-panel
and a couple of variations thereof.
Nothing has worked so far. I also tried:
apt-get build-dep gnome-panel
which installed a ton of stuff to my surprise… but still, no fix.
If I type gnome-panel into the terminal I get the message:
Cannot register the panel shell: there is already one running.
So clearly, it's not gone(anyway the top bar with menus and shutdown options etc. is still there), it's just the bottom bar… I also noticed that while I say it's missing, it's technically still there, albeit just a black unresponsive bar across the bottom of the screen. So I guess my real question is, why is it not showing anything? And can anybody please help me out?
Best Answer
It turns out that for some reason the settings for my bottom panel(taskbar) had been altered. To access the menu for the panels(top & bottom bars), I needed to hold Alt and then Right-click. This opened a little menu where I could select Add to panel... which opens another menu of things you can add to the taskbar. What I needed to add was 'Windows List', which solved my problem.