How to reset your Gnome desktop

<span title='2010-12-19 13:15:42 +0000 UTC'>Published on 2010-12-19</span> · <span title='2024-01-22 03:28:09 +0000 UTC'>Updated on 2024-01-22</span> · 1 min · Danesh Manoharan | Suggest Changes

So you messed up the Gnome desktop and don’t know how to restore it back to it’s default settings. Here’s how with no risks.

Log out and then hit “Ctrl + ALT + F1” to opening up a terminal.
Delete the following directories.

.gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity

Or run the this command.

rm -rf rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity

“Ctrl + ALT + F7/F8” and log in as usual.

This guide is based on Ubuntu 10.10