after setting up sudoers to allow reboots in xfce4, i attempted to reboot at which point the computer crashed. after a reboot, upon logging into xfce4 the panel doesn't load. at first I thought xfce4 failed to load. thus far i have attempted to: 1.) revert sudoers back to default 2.) delete the ~/.config directory. 3.) add xfce4-panel to xsession. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: bash-2.05b# emerge info Portage 2.0.51-r3 (default-linux/x86/2004.3, gcc-3.3.5, glibc-2.3.4.20040808-r1, 2.6.10-gentoo-r5gtp32 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.10-gentoo-r5gtp32 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+ Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16 Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59-r5 Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.5-r1 Binutils: sys-devel/binutils-2.15.92.0.2-r1 Headers: sys-kernel/linux26-headers-2.6.8.1-r2 Libtools: sys-devel/libtool-1.5.2-r7 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -mcpu=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.3/env /usr/kde/3.3/share/config /usr/kde/3.3/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -mcpu=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs autoconfig buildpkg ccache distcc distlocks sandbox sfperms" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.osuosl.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/src" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/gtp/overlay" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="3dnow X aac aalib acpi aim alsa apm audiofile avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bmpcdparanoia cdr crypt cups dga dio directfb divx4linux dvb dvd dvdr encode f77 fam fbcon flac font-server foomaticdb fortran ftp gdbm gif gphoto2 gpm gstreamer icq imagemagick imlib ipv6 jabber jack java joystick jpeg junit kde kdexdeltas libg++ libwww lirc mad mikmod mime mmx mng motif mpeg msn ncurses nls nptl objc oggvorbis openal opengl pam pda pdflib perl pic png python qt quicktime readline real ruby samba scanner sdl speex spell sse ssl svg svga tcpd tetex tga theora tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts usb wmf wxwindows x86 xine xinerama xml2 xmms xpm xv xvid yahoo zlib" also, i have started the thread: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=283839&highlight=xfce4+panel
try removing .cache and .config while not in X and then startxfce4
found a solution -- you must leave "save desktop on exit" on. if not, it seems that xfce4-panel will be removed from starting up. to fix, all that was needed was to use the run command from xfce4's menu to get xfce4-panel then exit xfce4 and save the desktop. I've submitted a bug to the xfce4 mailing list and will also post this solution to them in hopes they fix it. thanks for the suggestion though.