gnome instllation could not be found

[CorntoeGoblin]

alright it seems like i have a very bad problem.whenever i start my ubuntu distro i no longer get the nvidia splash screen and i get a nice little login but when i login it just defaults to a black terminal in the top left of my screen. whenever i try to do a gnome failsafe session it gives an error saying the the gnome installation could not be found and then it starts an xterm session. i manually start gdm and it gives no error but it doesn't change anything. i also erased all the gnome settings folders from the home folder and nothing either. the last session i was having problems with my ethernet connections that i was able to fix but then i noticed that gnome was being a little weird, not opening alt+f2, none of the shortcuts were working and the terminal was not opening only giving me errors so i decided to restart the computer but only to come to a dead gnome. i would try to reinstall the ubuntu-desktop package but when i go to a tty session and start networking it gives me errors about eth0 so i'm dead in the water. luckily i had a live puppy distro that i can use right now but i really want ubuntu back. i will consider reinstalling everything, but i'm pretty sure there has to be some kind of fix without me having to do that. please help out a restless soul haha i haven't been able to get anything done over the past couple of days cause of this damn problem.

thanks corntoe

p.s. i know its a little long but please read it try to be as detailed as possible.