I am currently using Ubuntu 18.04. Yesterday I noticed that there were some files in the root directory that I accidentally pasted in there a long time ago and wanted to remove those files. So I opened the terminal to give 'rwx' access for the root directory (stupid decision). I typed in the code '''sudo chmod 744 /'''. The system immediately gave me an error and all icons disappeared but I could still navigate around the desktop and between desktop and applications using my mouse, just couldn't open anything. I then tried to shut down and restart the laptop. On restarting, the boot process got stuck at the 5 red dots screen. I could still seeing the white dots changing to red dots so it hadn't freezed. But it didn't move past the red dots screen even after waiting for an hour. I have tried to reboot the laptop many times since yesterday but it always gets stuck at that screen again and again. Please help.
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/aredrwxr-xr-xor 755. I have no idea why you'd change it to 744, because that doesn't give write permissions and it also disabled exec privileges which will break your system. Maybe you can drop to a root shell prompt with networking in recovery options at boot and change the permission back, if the system is even still functional enough to do that. Never change permissions on system directories. This could be a fatal error. – Nmath Oct 24 '22 at 04:34