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So I guess I majorly screwed up.

In order to install gimp 2.8 I had to upgrade gtk. I first installed 3.4 but it wouldn't work, so I then installed a specific version of 2.4.

Now, after rebooting, my desktop theme had changed and was really ugly, so I decided I'd revert all changes I had made (and gimp 2.8 wasn't really that more useful than 2.6). I went back to my packages and did sudo make uninstall on all of them.

After another reboot, no more desktop, not even a login prompt, all I see is the console which usually briefly appears before the login prompt, with things like "bluetooth started". I can't seem to be able to interact with it. The only time I can make it change is when I press the power button and it shuts down all services before powering off.

I'm now logged in from the install cd, and I'd be really happy to find a fix instead of having to reinstall everything from scratch..

Anybody knows how to? Thanks in advance!

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1 Answer

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Start by entering recovery mode and log in with your user name and passwd. Or log in via the cd as you did.

try reinstalling ubuntu-desktop with,

  • sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop
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Thanks for the quick answer! Unfortunately that didn't fix my system, still get on the same console.. – ben May 29 '12 at 11:34
hmmmm.... . . . – Alvar May 29 '12 at 11:38
@ben can't come up with any other simple solution that is faster than a fresh install. So I suggests to just make a fresh install now. it's faster. – Alvar May 29 '12 at 11:57
Could it be due to something like the startup script not containing the instruction to load the desktop? I see no error on the screen – ben May 29 '12 at 11:57
@ben the ubuntu-desktop take cares of that, it should be fixed, try a sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade it might fix some old package version bugs you might have.. – Alvar May 29 '12 at 12:02
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