nautilus won't start, howto troubleshoot hald

[Paul]

I'm running dropline gnome-2.8.0 on slackware with linux-2.6.7.  Others 
are successfully using this desktop.

However, when I log in, nautilus won't start:

- I have no desktop wallpaper and right clicking on the desktop does not 
bring up anything.  Calling up the desktop background preference just 
starts a window that goes dead.

- Starting nautilus causes a running process, but no window appears.

- When I use a gnome app (i.e. gpdf) to try to open a file (Menu "File 
=> Open"), the app window freezes and has to be killed.  Interestingly, 
when I use gpdf from KDE, it brings up a menu to open a file successfully.

Someone on the dropline mail list indicated he was able to solve this 
problem by assuring hal was running.  I've checked and hal is running:

root :~# ps -aux | grep hald
root      3103  0.0  0.5  3936  996 ?        Ds   09:21   0:05 
/usr/sbin/hald --daemon=yes
root      5015  0.0  0.3  1680  632 pts/12   S+   12:14   0:00 grep hald

So, I thought I'd stop hald and restart it, but it won't kill:

root :~# kill 3103
root :~# ps -aux | grep hald
root      3103  0.0  0.5  3936  996 ?        Ds   09:21   0:05 
/usr/sbin/hald --daemon=yes
root      5017  0.0  0.3  1680  628 pts/12   R+   12:14   0:00 grep hald

root :~# killall -KILL hald
root :~# ps -aux | grep hald
root      3103  0.0  0.5  3936  996 ?        Ds   09:21   0:05 
/usr/sbin/hald --daemon=yes
root      5020  0.0  0.3  1680  632 pts/12   S+   12:14   0:00 grep hald

Is there a way I can troubleshoot hald and it's effect on nautilus on my 
gnome?

paul
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