You've read the title correctly.

No ls command ...no yum ...I can change directories but
little else.

I ran yum upgrade and it got hung up somewhere and recommended
that I run yum-complete-transaction. I assumed that it was erasing duplicates ...but apparently not.

Here's a fun example of my situation:
[root@chairman log]# cat yum.log | grep yum-complete-transaction
bash: cat: command not found
[root@chairman log]# vi yum.log
bash: vi: command not found

Feel free to flame me for running this command without doing more research. I have to say though, putting an alias to "rm -rf "pretty much everything"" seems mightily irresponsible.

Bub

Update *** I do not actually have an alias to "rm -rf /bin or whatever". I was comparing the
yum-complete-transaction command to such an alias as that is what it did.

See above for "useless use of 'cat'".

Just thought I'd throw that in there to spare someone else the
trouble.

Are you sure that everything is gone? Could it be that your path is empty? Check your bin directories. And why do you have an alias to "rm -rf"? That's just dumb.
By the way, what Distro are you using?

Sounds like a good time to re-install from the installation CD, WITHOUT reformatting the partition (thereby leaving your /home intact.)

And get rid of that alias -- that's dumb

Sasha

Though if you do have your /home on a separate partition it might be a good idea to format your system partition. You could start with a clean slate as apposed to trying to install on top of a damaged one.
In general its a good idea to keep your /home on a separate partition in case things like these happen. And for easy upgrade of regular releases.

@jasohl ~
I do not actually have that alias. I was just making a comparison.
Using yum-complete-transaction functionally acted like an alias
to rm by deleting tons of binaries from my system. I would never
actually create such an alias, but whoever created the yum-complete-transaction command apparently thought it a good idea.

I thought I was simply cleaning the yum database by getting rid of duplicates. This is what I understood the command to do ( I did 'Google it'). Of course, after the damage was done Google turned up other folks with the same issue, or on the brink of the same disaster.

Bub

I am using RHEL Desktop v.5.

This is yet another example of apt utterly kicking yum's ass without
even trying.

Anyone ever had their Debian( or similar) system hosed by an apt command?
I never have.

UPDATE:

You're gonna love this. Here's my response from Red Hat support.

Well, there is a moral:

1. Have good backups ( which, thankfully, I do. )
2. Never use commands you don't fully understand. ( Even if yum tells you 'it's cool' ).
3. AVOID AT ALL COSTS yum-complete-transactions!!!!!. It's a plague on six syllables.

Bub

I will get back to restoring order from chaos now.