diff --git a/trunk/index.pl b/trunk/index.pl
index c04e71a..b3e4964 100644
--- a/trunk/index.pl
+++ b/trunk/index.pl
@@ -6,11 +6,13 @@ require "functions.pl";
 CGI::Session->name($session_name);
 my $session = new CGI::Session;
 
-#read xml
-$page = XMLin("$gnutube_root/index.xml", ForceArray => 1, KeyAttr => {} );
+%page = ();
 
 #if a username is associated with session id, username is nonempty
 $page->{username} = get_username_from_sid($session->id);
+$page->{locale} = "en-US";
+$page->{stylesheet} = "./style/gnutube.css";
+$page->{frontpage} = [''];
 
 fill_tagcloud;
 
@@ -20,4 +22,3 @@ print $session->header(-type=>'text/xml');
 #print xml
 print XMLout($page, KeyAttr => {}, XMLDecl => $XMLDecl, RootName => 'page');
 
-
diff --git a/trunk/index.xml b/trunk/index.xml
deleted file mode 100755
index 71213ae..0000000
--- a/trunk/index.xml
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,7 +0,0 @@
-<page
-	locale="en-US"
-	stylesheet="./style/gnutube.css"
-	username=""
->
-	<frontpage />
-</page>