alt+f2

run gconf-editor, navigate to /apps/metacity/general/button_layout
the value should looks like: "menu:minimize,maximize,close"
without quote.

I did as you suggested and indeed it turned out exactly as
you describe and the problem remains

This is going to sound silly, but did you log out and back in after
making these changes? Or restart X entirely to get a new gnome
session going?

This is going to sound silly, but did you log out and back in after
making these changes? Or restart X entirely to get a new gnome
session going?

I didn't make any changes - here's a screen shot of my config editor:

As you can see everything looks OK, except that the resize and close
buttons are missing here too, and, by the way, you will notice that the
top bar is opaque, this means that I cannot move the application around
the screen, the same is true for terminal, and everything else, whatever
I open it it stays where it opens and I cannot move it.

Any more ideas?

I have resolved m problem - By chance I then went to
System/Preferences/Appearance Preferences/Visual effects and nothing
there was selected, I selected Extra and lo and behold the top bar
colorized and the min,max,close buttons reappeared - problem solved.

It is a weird effect that happens sometimes in gnome with firefox hit the
f11 button to go to fullscreen, then again to come back, this usually fixes
it. Taking the mouse pointer right to the top of the screen and then slowly
back down will sometimes kick it back in as well. The latter applies to other
windows apart from firefox. The other way is to turn off the sexy effects, ie
right click on desktop go to change desktop background, change desktop
effects and select none.