I'm not sure what I did, but the X server that I've set to initialize into a session has gone bonkers. Instead of just the user's names and icons appearing in the window, I now get around 20 icons, which have names like 'logout', 'shutdown', 'alias' - basically a lot of function names. I did not define these myself. they just appeared out of nowhere. At some point, other things have also happened: 1) I used to use KDE as my session, but when the system checked the different system components before entering the session, it hung when it got to the network icon. I had to shutdown manually. 2) Then, I lost the option of all sessions except 'gnome', 'default' and 'kde2'. I have been using 'gnome' since then 3) In the X server interface, there used to be a button for shutting down the computer. Now that is gone. If I become root and type 'shutdown now' in a terminal within some session, the system begins to do it, but hangs after a while, so that I have to do a manual reboot/shutdown. I have checked documentation for Linux mandrake 8.0 but couldn't find anything that suggested a solution for the above things. Any help would be really appreciated.

I'm using Mandrake 8.0 now, KDE, on an AMD K6-2 with 144 MB ram. I have about 500 mb swap partition. I've never seen what you describe. I wonder if you either do not have enough cpu power or memory to run Mandrake 8.0, or what. I suggust you reinstall your system as a "new install", and make sure you set up a nice swap file. Linux can, I am told, handle up to "5" 2.0 GB swap files. I have two of them on this system, on different hard drives, and they add up to 580500K. Just maybe that is the problem. Also, Mandrake is a really good linux distro, and worth working with to get it going. All you can do, however, is make sure you have a good stable machine, and reinstall, Mandrake will do the rest. To shutdown from the command line: #shutdown -h now

It sounds like the groups have gotten screwed up. I have seen what have been listed in groups when I was looking through the control panel. The best bet I beleive is to do what Rapidweather said and just reinstall, choosing the full install and format options.It will be the most painless way to go.