Two problems, observations and a workround

[scbs29]

My last version was 2009, fully updated until the repos were frozen.
Installed in 3 partitions,
/ 15 Gb, 2.9 Gb now used
swap I think about 5 Gb
/home 84 Gb, 3.8 Gb now used.

When I installed 2010, I formatted / and left /home as it was, the default on the install.

[menotu]

My "feeling" is that your old 2009 /home is causing problems.

There are probably lots of ways of sorting your problems out but if I had lots of issue's such as you are having I would move my /home to somewhere safe and then do a completely new install.

On the new install I would then format / and create and format a new /home  and format your swap partition.

Then after the new install and you have your system up and running properly I would then move data from the old /home. BUT I would only move over a small amount of data at a time (and do frequent restarts/reboots inbetween) and this way you can at least pin down any problem areas fairly quickly.

But as I say, this just my approach and you may want to take a completely different route.

[scbs29]

Thanks for the reply.
I have just reinstalled PCLos, again not formatting /home and I now have no panels, no widgets or anything.
I managed to put a Kicker on a panel to access Firefox, but I think that I will do as you suggested and reformat /home as well.
I will let you know how it goes.

[menotu]

Good luck! 

As an added extra you may want to download GParted LiveCD (or some other disk utility) and format your partitions prior to doing the install.

Just remember to backup your data (music / photo's / movies / docs etc etc) beforehand 

[scbs29]

I have reinstalled, formatting both / and /home and the desktop is completely different to what it was before. I have a panel at the bottom with
launchers/widgets or whatever for configuration, kicker, dolphin etc. I also have some on the desktop for things like Firewall setup, Network centre etc.
I have installed Wine and Virtualbox with no problems, so I will see how it goes.

[menotu]

I have reinstalled, formatting both / and /home and the desktop is completely different to what it was before. I have a panel at the bottom with
launchers/widgets or whatever for configuration, kicker, dolphin etc. I also have some on the desktop for things like Firewall setup, Network centre etc.
I have installed Wine and Virtualbox with no problems, so I will see how it goes.

Great news!  It sure makes a different eh, when things are as they should be.

I think re-using /home from another version often brings in so much detritus that it wants to have fisticuffs with the new version (with the result that it knocks both "players" out  )

[scbs29]

Yes, certainly seems much better now. I have only had the do_IRQ: 0.83 No irq handler for vector (irq -1) error once so far.
Still problems putting launchers for Windows programs on top panel and setting different icons for them. I can easily put the launcher
on the panel by drag and drop from Dolphin, but all launchers I add to the panel in this way have the same icon. I can change the
icons, but when I log out and then back in all of the launchers have the same icon as the last one that I added.
As well as this, all executable files in any folder now have the same icon as those in the launcher.
I can use Wine to install with a shortcut on the desktop which I can then drag to the panel. This keeps the different icons, but of course
leaves a launcher for the program on the desktop, which is not what I want. If I remove the launcher from the desktop then it also
removes the launcher for the panel.
Still some sorting out to do with this. In the last resort I could always of course RTFM :-), but I enjoy pratting about to try these things.