Linux help please?

[Phil Holmes]

Nothing to do with LilyPond, but don't know where else to ask.

I've been creating an Ubuntu VM to install an open-source telephone 
exchange, Asterix.  All going well until I had to compile a package called 
Dahdi.  This failed on an include, and so I was trying to edit the source 
file.  It's owned by root and so logged in as phil, it was read-only.  I 
thought that rather than learn the syntax of chmod, I'd just briefly log in 
as root.  I clicked the "log-off" button and switched user to root.  All the 
desktop furniture disappeared - no task bar, no Places, no logout, nothing. 
So I shut down using the VM command and restarted.  Same.  I'm shown as 
logged in as phil, but I can't do anything at all.  Anyone any ideas of how 
to get my desktop back?

--
Phil Holmes
Bug Squad