11.10 lets user uninstall "Mail Reader/Web Browser", resulting in unusable desktop

[pheel]

Hello all,

The issue as I've diagnosed it is a xubuntu one, but I suspect the fix will relate to some more general knowledge.

It seems that a change from 11.04 to 11.10 is that the Software Center now lets users uninstall what shows up as "Mail Reader" and "Web Browser". I, a clueless user, decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and do that for "Mail Reader", but I realized soon enough that I had probably uninstalled something related to exo, or exo as a whole. (As a matter of fact, Web Browser too disapeared when I did that.)

Now, I imagine as a result of that uninstallation, and of exo's close ties with xfce, I am able to see the login screen but not anything beyond that. When I log in, xfce doesn't fully load and gets stuck at displaying the wallpaper and a tiny gray box in the top left corner of the screen.

1) Is what I described a plausible cause of the problem?

2) What would be the best way to reinstall the missing packages, provided I cannot get into the desktop?


Many thanks!!

[LewisTM]

Your assumption is right, what you did was remove the exo-utils package, which is required by pretty much all of xfce's base components. This in effect has a cascading effect and removes those components as well.

You can go to a virtual console by pressing control-alt-F1. This will bring you to a text mode login screen were you can login as you and run
sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop to restore everything. Then reboot (ctrl-alt-del) or switch back to the X session (ctrl-alt-F7) and kill it with <Alt><SysRq><k>. This should bring you back to a graphical login screen. You next login should lead you to a functional desktop.

That's of course assuming you have internet access from a wired connection. If you connect by wireless, it's possible you need the desktop to be running in the first place; but then again it might work regardless.

Cheers!

[pheel]

No wonder the desktop wouldn't load: xubuntu-desktop and all of its dependents had been uninstalled! Ctrl+Alt+F1 at login screen and 'sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop' did the trick.

So for anyone wondering what uninstalling "Mail Reader" or "Web Browser" from the Ubuntu Software Center does... that's what. Potentially easy mistake to make...

[pheel]

Your assumption is right, what you did was remove the exo-utils package, which is required by pretty much all of xfce's base components. This in effect has a cascading effect and removes those components as well.

You can go to a virtual console by pressing control-alt-F1. This will bring you to a text mode login screen were you can login as you and run
sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop to restore everything. Then reboot (ctrl-alt-del) or switch back to the X session (ctrl-alt-F7) and kill it with <Alt><SysRq><k>. This should bring you back to a graphical login screen. You next login should lead you to a functional desktop.

That's of course assuming you have internet access from a wired connection. If you connect by wireless, it's possible you need the desktop to be running in the first place; but then again it might work regardless.

Cheers!

Thanks for the correct answer. :)