Been having trouble ever since I installed Kubuntu and then tried to use ClamAV, in which case the system crashed and I had severe filesystem errors. Those were fixed by running fsck from the LiveCD, however many of the symlinks were destroyed.

I can boot into recovery mode, kdm doesn't work, so I use gdm instead. The windows wouldn't open in KDE and gnome wouldn't run a single app when I started its session in failsafe, leaving me with nothing but a blank colored orangish screen. Many error messages popped up, indicating the failure of every single necessary gnome component. I absolutely will not reformat with a clean install because I am stubborn.

What method should I use to reinstall gnome and all its associated packages? Is there a list of all packages necessary for it to function? Remember, I cannot use any graphical means...command line only. Unless, of course, there is a way to install synaptic packages from the LiveCD to the hard drive device.

Well, synaptic is just a graphical front-end for apt, your package manager. So it's not a problem if you just know what you like to install

will install packagename, and if it has dependencies, it resolves, downloads and installs them too. Just like Synaptic, but on command-line. Of course you need to know what to install, but I assume you'll either know or find it out quickly. Apt can also handle reinstalling:

should do it for you. If you wish to use your cd, you can either install packages one by one using

or just define your CD as one reposity for apt-get. I suggest you use apt-get with a normal internet connection (if it's working, is it?)

Having no graphical user interface doesn't prevent you from doing something (well, maybe photo editing is a bit difficult task then), you'll just have to know the commands -- and you should, really take a look at linuxcommand.org for the basics. Oh, and read man pages whenever you need more information about something:

should help -- the -k-option searches for manpages for a given keyword, and plain man command displays man-page for the given commandname (for example), if it exists.

thank you. I had a feeling it was something like that. I'm used to the command line, I've just never installed using apt before. I also have a need to do things the hard way, but no matter. I appreciate the help (for without it, I would probably have fretted a very simply problem...considering I've used Linux for nearly a year and a half now, lol) I suppose all I have to do is get a list of files that I need to reinstall, shouldn't be too hard.

let apt do the hard work. apt-get install --reinstall kde (or gnome) _should_ sort out all the files and dependencies for you. you may want to add your cd('s) to your sources list before hand to minimize the amount you have to download. "apt-cdrom add" with the cd in the drive.

ok, I tried apt-get install --reinstall...and got this error message

This is weird because it worked when I reinstalled kdm, but then stopped working afterward.

can you do "ldconfig" as root then try again?

just tried it, same result

been into linux since a few months only... so please disregard the ignorance if any...

1) use dselect or aptitude to get a interface for installing packages from command line.

2) no need to redefine the apt list if u can sudo and copy the packages from disc to /var/cache/apt/archives. The said path is the first place where apt based apps look when they have to install anything.

If i have to follow the above steps, I'll do the second one first. your system doesn't even have the basic libs, or they are corrupted, so u end up with an Http lib error... I am recommending this solution because this way you will be able to do an offline installation, circumventing the need to use HTTP libs. Worth a shot??

well, yes, except I got quite anxious and finally decided to reformat..

I really appreciate the advice though, the next time this happens, if it happens again, I'll certainly know what to do.

(should mention, I decided to put /home on a separate partition this time so I wouldn't lose anything if it happens again.)

thanks again everyone.