as one symptom, after i killed firefox for acting weird, even after all firefox processes had gone away, there were still a number of graphic images left over from a couple sessions littering the desktop. and when i just tried to log out of GNOME, i was told i was currently logged in as "Unknown". how odd. rday ======================================================================== Robert P. J. Day Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA http://crashcourse.ca ========================================================================