Ubuntu - No gnome-panels, no right-click, no internet, no hotkeys

Hey guys, I've been using Ubuntu (Maverick 10.10) on my desktop (ATI Radeon 5830) for about 3 weeks now, but all of a sudden I am unable to even use my computer.

As soon as I start up, I see my desktop, with icons, but I don't see any gnome-panels, and I'm unable to get any options if I right-click. I can start programs by double clicking them. I also cannot get an internet connection.

I've tried restarting gnome-panel by killing it, using Ctrl+Alt+5 to switch to a terminal (I don't have a shortcut to one on my desktop, and no hotkeys will work), but no luck. Restarting my computer has no effect upon this (I have to manually cut the power, since I don't know the terminal command).

As far as I know, I have not made any changes, and I've never had any problems in the past. This started when I was playing Minecraft, but my internet crapped out, and no amount of re-trying the connection would work. I know it was my computer, as my brother's was working fine in the other room.

Any clues as to what's going on? I'm more than willing to troubleshoot.

Casey Kuball

Posted 2011-03-14T00:34:30.093

Reputation: 337

The command to shut down is shutdown. You'll need root privileges (sudo shutdown), and rebooting is indicated by the -r flag. – Cajunluke – 2011-03-14T20:13:16.917

I'm able to reboot using 'sudo reboot', I don't know if 'sudo shutdown -r' is any different. No changes upon reboot, though. – Casey Kuball – 2011-03-15T06:00:32.447

Answers

All I know from Minecraft is trouble. What a mess! Since the whole desktop seems to be unusable, I would try:

sudo apt-get remove --purge ubuntu-desktop
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

This won't affect the network. What does the following command print out?

ifconfig

I have a bug with my Asus mainboard Ethernet adapter that sometimes prevents initialisation if I don't take the plug out my PC before powering on.

mundenhof

Posted 2011-03-14T00:34:30.093

Reputation: 43

This is my output from ifconfig. I use my wireless: http://pastebin.com/y0Pu16KP

– Casey Kuball – 2011-03-15T18:21:51.773

My friend says that it nautilus seems to be working, but gnome does not. I was able to actually pipe that output directly from my desktop, into a file, and transfer it to my external hard drive (actually opening the drive and home folder via the icons on my desktop). – Casey Kuball – 2011-03-15T18:23:12.473

I'm also trying to figure out how I would get ubuntu-desktop installed without a desktop, but the only help I found was using apt-mirror to download the repositories (quite a bit of downloading), and then install locally.

Is there a simple way to locally install a single package? – Casey Kuball – 2011-03-15T18:40:29.837