panels have dissapeared - mint13 mate
 

My upper and lower panels just disappeared. I had just rebooted after installing Gnometweaks through synaptics. Don't know if that has anything to do with it. without an icon, I can't even get a terminal (unless there is a keyboard sequence that will do that).

using ctrl/alt + f1 I got to a single user panel, logged in, and with sudo reinstalled gnome panel (I thought). It went through the sequence and said that it was installed, but didn't show up on the desktop, even after reboot.

Don't really want to reinstall, as It's a fairly knew install, - just old enough to have allowed me to 'personalize' it with the programs and adjustments I like.

Using mlocate, I was able to find a mess of config files pertaining to my personal desktop and panels, but haven't any idea what to do with which, so I left them alone.

What next? What can I do? Would it be wise to edit one or another of those config files? If so which, and in what way?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

Create a test user, log on as that user, do you still have this problem?

OK I created another user. It came up as a blank page with the default wall paper, and the 'suggestions' in the middle. Still no menu or panels.

Under the old user name I discovered a way to maneuver to some extent. The icons are there for items that I had saved to the 'desktop', so I clicked on an html file there which brought up Firefox, and then let me navigate to the internet.

actualy the icons are not there. What I should have said is thaat since I had (for instance) a folder, on the desktop, it is still visible, and I can click on it to bring up the file browser, and then browse to find other files that will allow me to brng up the word processor, or Firefox, or a "open with other applcation" dialogue, and by that means I can navigate to some extent. But I haven't found a way to bring up a real "menu" such as the gnome menu,or the mate menu yet. But there are a number of items that I can't get to, that I thought might be a help toward getting back the desktop panels and menu.

I was able to import (from another distro on my hard drive) a way of calling up a terminal, and with the use of midnight-commander, and nano to set u p a few very basic scripts to get to some items. But without a real menu, and without the panels, it's sort of like shooting in the dark.