Question

1

Accidentally deleted Gnome session, login no longer works

rated 0 times [ 1] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 6144 / 3 Years ago, sun, may 9, 2021, 11:04:23

I'm sorry if this question has been asked already, but I think mine is a very rare case(if it is).

So the story goes like this:
I was able to "remove/uninstall" GNOME UI (I just want to call it UI, and I want the default/stock Unity "UI"). Unfortunately, I restarted my system, hoping that Unity "UI" would be loaded, but there's no Unity UI preinstalled!

I'm using GRUB bootloader, Ubuntu is installed with Windows 7 Pro 32 Bit(But on other partition, of course). Also, I have my preinstalled apps, and I'm just using Ubuntu for about this day only(Yeah, you can call me a noob or whatever).

In short, I can boot Ubuntu properly, but I can't log in. I tried to do a recovery, but I aborted it (foolish, huh?).

Do I have to do a reinstallation of the OS? Or I should type commands in GRUB bootloader (if possible)?

I'm sorry for my long story, and wrong grammars(if there are :D). Do you know any solutions? Quick responses are VERY appreciated.

Answers

Only authorized users can answer the question. Please sign in first, or register a free account.

theurn

Add To Favorites

Follow

Total Points: 30

Total Questions: 110

Total Answers: 111

Location: Bahrain

Member since Fri, Sep 16, 2022

2 Years ago

theurn questions

1 How to change a folder's permissions and owners?

Tue, Apr 5, 22, 14:18, 2 Years ago

1 Cant mount Window's partition on bootable ubuntu 20.04

Mon, Feb 14, 22, 16:29, 2 Years ago

1 select positional argument in xargs

Sat, Apr 8, 23, 05:26, 1 Year ago

1 Refresh rate not working on login screen

Tue, Jan 10, 23, 23:59, 1 Year ago

1 Chromium does not start after update on 20.04

Fri, Apr 8, 22, 01:36, 2 Years ago

View All

answered 3 Years ago ainubt · Accepted Answer

If I understand your problem, you tried to remove Gnome Desktop and now you have no login screen so you cannot log in.

Not sure what command you might have used but alot of Gnome programs are a dependant of the Unity desktop.

You should still be able to log into Ubuntu using the terminal as you say you can still boot.

After booting press Ctrl+Alt+F1 this should get you to tty 1. If so enter your username and the press enter. Enter your password at the prompt note that you will not see any response to your keypress but they will still register(this is a security feature).

After you enter your password press enter and you should be greeted with a line that has your username and the computer name followed by ~$ if so you have successfully log in to Ubuntu but with not Desktop environment. We can now try to reinstall a DE to use.

Type this into the terminal sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop This should install the Unity desktop as well as any dependencies that you may have deleted when you tried to remove Gnome.

If successful you should be able to restart and use your Unity Desktop. To restart type sudo reboot into the terminal and your computer will reboot just like you had done so from the UI.

If you still get no login screen restart and log into the terminal and type sudo apt-get install lightdm unity-greeter

I think these are installed when you install ubuntu-deskop but I was unable to verify that. You can install them at the same time you install the desktop if you want, they will not reinstall if you already have the latest version and will give you a warning as such but will do no damage.

Note that this will only work if you still can connect to the internet, if you have borked your system so that you can no longer connect you may be able to install from the live media that you installed Ubuntu with but it may or may not work. It may still be possible to get it installed by manually setting up the connection in the terminal but that is beyond my knowledge.

Note #2 If for some reason you cannot log into Ubuntu when you press Crtl+Alt+F1 then boot to recovery mode (press Left Shift repeatedly during boot then select recovery mode with networking) and then you should be able to follow the instructions to install ubuntu-desktop.