* run control-panel * select Network Config Tool * click <save>, which will close out Control-Panel and return user to desktop * no Gnome panel apps will run at this point
Restarting X is the only way to regain control of the panel apps. NOTE: this situation only happens once. Upon restarting X, user can execute the same commands described above and the panel apps will not freeze!
This isn't all you are doing. I'll bet that you are configuring and starting a DHCP-enabled ethernet interface, which is changing the hostname of the machine. GNOME requires that the hostname remain the same because the hostname is used in authentication. Our default X security method, xauth, is exactly the same. There is no simple way to fix this, and certainly no reasonable way that I can think of. It should not normally be an issue, as the ethernet device will generally have already been set up (from install or kudzu) and the hostname already set by the time X is running. If my assumption about what you were doing is wrong, please re-open with more details.