Wallpaper trashed?

I was busy composing an important letter in Open Office, when - what the heck - I got a black screen on death on my laptop! DAMN!!

This was a black screen with some very small writing top left - which disappeared as I tried to read it (why does it always seem to do this) to be followed by a black screen with a small central box marked ******* (my user name) and password.

With trepidation, I entered my password and pressed return...

Whoa!, up came my desktop but with the wrong wallpaper and icon size - What the heck is happening here!

I shut down (powered off) and restarted. Everything seemed to be back to normal apart from the wallpaper not being “adapta gtk” (from memory - I think that was it). Boris - or whoever it was, has installed some crazy 45 degree angled camouflage type wallpaper in various shades of white, light grey and light blue.


What has happened here and how do I get my wallpaper and sanity back?

P.S. My letter fortunately had been saved - Whew!!
P.P.S. I installed “software updater” updates last night - a mistake?

Update - I don't know if it was a wallpaper or not.

It was the scene of a lake that came with Zorin12 - that's behind the desktop icons.

Thanks.

Here is a cropped screenshop - full thing entity was toolarge!

Note the clever choice of OS colours so you can't see them - the bits on the right of the bottom bar.

Your screenshot looks like a Debian wallpaper. Have you lost your wallpaper altogether?

Hi Finston

sorry for lacking to reply to your questions recently
on this one I think it has nothing to do with overheating or graphic drivers but stack overflow and there is/was in February a bug found
If you’re using Ubuntu Xenial goto to Terminal and give command -r
if the answer is 4.4.0-58 and 4.4.0-62 (inclusive), your kernel may incorrectly kill big processes even when there’s plenty of memory available.

can you check please as
by virtue my kernel is way ahead of it


cheers

Thanks for the replies Swarf and Zorinantwerp.


Swarf, Have I still got got wallpapers? - good question - where would I fnd them? Is the blueish photo of the lake which was behind my desktop icons even a wallpaper? (the one now replaced by the camo light whte, grey and blue mess). What function do wallpaers provide - its always been unclear to me.

I checked in Tweak tool and found under "desktop" an entry for Desktop Mode: Zoom, Background location: adwaita-timed.xml. Also "lockscreen" Mode: Zoom, lockscreen location: blend.png


Zorinantwerp, I am using Zorin OS 12.3 64 bit - I don't know if it is based on Ubuntu Xenial - all I know is that it is based on Ubuntu 16.04 (I wish only one naming system would be used for linux and android). Looking online 16.04 seems to be Xenial Xerus - what ever that is! Pease advisel

Looking in Ubuntu tweak, I find a spattering of kernels being used, for some reason - various grades of 4.4, 4.10 and 4.13. 4.4.0-116 is there (the only 4.4 entry) - no sign of 4.4.0-58 and 4.4.0-62 (inclusive).

hi again

'The Ubuntu 16.04 name is 'Xenial Xerus'. It is the successor to Wily Werewolf, and the next Long-Term Support release. Xenial ‎is an adjective meaning 'hospitable' or 'friendly', while xerus is the posh name given to a ground squirrel.

In Terminal you can give the command uname -r to see your - detailed - kernel version in relation to the bug

By the way you can use also Terminal uname -a so you see your Zorin version combines Zorin with Xenial

HI Finston,

Wallpapers are stored here, but to be correct, 'Backgrounds' you should be able to access them easily by right-clicking the desktop anywhere and select - change background - choose from 37 default pics, your own photos folder, or solid colours:



Note the Path!

Thanks, Swarf - you are a star!

No real instruction in the OS as to what to do after right clicking on the desktop (typical - they always expect you to know). But I clicked on the one that was not Lockscreen and eventually found my lake. Success.

How the heck did the wrong selection get made by the laptop, I wonder?

Finston, might I suggest?:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=13614