thanks to Joseph. after rebuild many packages, the desktop restored to it used to be. the relations seems to be: metacity: ALT-TAB and multiple work spaces support. libgnome: desktop icons and applications menu icons, keyboard repeat event(in gterm ) gnome-session: startup splash screen and popup logout dialog many other packages also have been rebuilt, but the above have immediate effect. according to garnome/README, set XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=/usr/local/etc/xdg in ~/.xprofile find applications menu content. but set XDG_DATA_DIRS=/usr/local/share will result warning of 'cannot find icon file-manager' and the filemanager icon on top bar is a red X. so not setting XDG_DATA_DIRS. ps. i built gnome , not garnome :-P. _______________________________________________ gnome-list mailing list gnome-list@xxxxxxxxx http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-list