I broke my linux :( I did apt-get remove zenity. Now my desktop is missing.
 

Hi Everyone.

I hope someone can be kind enough to help me. Before we start, I'm a total noob and a luzer. I know already so you don't have to tell me. So now that's out of the way...

I'm not entirely sure if this is what caused this mess but this is what I think happened.

I'm trying to learn backtrack linux for my wannabe security pro endeavors. I got it set up and working the way I like it.

For an irrelevant reason I downloaded and ran the script on this page

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/multibo...sb-from-linux/

The application it installed didn't work (said it had to be root when it already was) So I became bored and decided I wanted to uninstall. I looked inside the script and it said the line...

xterm -title 'Install zenity' -e "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -q -y zenity"

So because I'm such a spanner and a div, I figured to uninstall I had to run...

"apt-get remove zenity"

When zenity was removing I saw it removed lots of other things like "gnome" and stuff that I figured I might actually need. Realising (or rather guessing) I might have done something stupid, I ran

"apt-get install zenity"

Everything seemed to be working fine. I left my laptop on overnight and came back to it the next day. For some reason the Internet wouldn't connect so I decided to restart the computer.

That's when I ran in to problems. I ran the startx command like usual but rather than giving me my usual desktop I was instead presented with a black screen and a little cyan box in the top left hand corner divided up in to four. None of my panels were present including the regular menu panel with the clock and everything. Left clicking gives me a menu I have never seen before with "Applications, FVWM Modules, Games, Help, Window Managers" I tried the games but they were all totally lame. I then looked at "window Managers" but the only option inside was FVWM1 and that didn't seem to do much...I discovered that by selecting Applications/File Management/Nautilus, I can get it to load my background and give me a file manager type window that I could use to find the word "zenity" from the file I ran last night.

In addition to linux savvy and common sense, I think I might be missing a default "window manager" or something. What do I need to type in to terminal to get my backtrack linux back to the way it was (or something close to it). That is the standard panels and menus that it starts with out of the box.

Thanks in advance to anyone kind enough and smart enough to help.

Jess

xxx

I believe KDE is the default desktop. Try apt-get kde. This should replace anything you inadvertently removed, though it may pull in a few extras (you can deal with those later). Typically, Debian style package management will then automatically set the new desktop environment as the default. If not, you will have to edit the xinitrc.

Hi liberalchrist,

Thank you for getting back to me. I'm afraid apt-get kde didn't help. It said "kde has no installation candidate" or something. It doesn't matter now anyway though. I nuked the computer and did a fresh re-install.

Thanks anyway.

Jess

xxx