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I am using Ubuntu 14.04. I have big issues with the Unity desktop. I installed then uninstalled gnome-shell (using "apt-get autoremove --purge gnome-shell"). Since then, my desktop has no background and no icons. Plus, and this is the bothering part, unity is very unstable. On startup, there is a huge use of memory, much more than before. Sometimes, I also cannot minimize a window without having the desktop freezing and having to kill the process in question with tty1. I have tried to use :

apt-get autoremove --purge ubuntu-desktop
apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

But it does not change a thing. I tried to update my video drivers but it is still the same.

How can I reinstall the unity desktop thoroughly (obviously, something in its install is broken) ?

If it is not possible, is it safe that I create a new partition on my disk where I will put my files and reinstall Ubuntu on the old partition (I do have a USB install of Ubuntu 14.04 but not enough space to save my files on it) ?

Seth
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fyusuf-a
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  • Removing gnome-shell like that won't kill everything like this, but autoremove can be dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. Always, always, *always* check the list of packages autoremove says it will remove. Especially if you've been tinkering. If sudo apt install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop unity doesn't fix things, I'd say the easiest thing you can do is reinstall. If you want to try fixing it, can you get into a TTY (Ctrl+Alt+F1)? Try accessing /var/log/dpkg.log. Follow this guide if you need help accessing the file. – Seth Aug 22 '14 at 03:50
  • Could you paste its contents to http://paste.ubuntu.com and give me the link? Let's see what got removed. – Seth Aug 22 '14 at 03:51
  • If the problem were just that you had weird alternatives for nonessential packages, purging and autoremoving again and then installing the ubuntu-desktop task would likely solve the problem. I very much doubt this will actually fix the present problem, where Unity is not installed at all, or I'd be posting it as an answer instead. (After all, unity is a dependency of the ubuntu-desktop metapackage; it should be installed.) Still, maybe it will improve your system to a less broken state, out of which further progress can be made. – Eliah Kagan Aug 22 '14 at 03:54
  • @EliahKagan According to the question, Unity is installed. I'm placing my money on essential libraries/packages being removed with autoremove. But at this point, it could be a lot of different things. – Seth Aug 22 '14 at 03:56
  • @Seth Sorry, I didn't say that very well. That unity is installed and running (but badly) is, it seems to me, even more reason to try installing the task instead of the metapackage, in case bad dependency resolution is a contributing factor. It's sort of a long shot though. – Eliah Kagan Aug 22 '14 at 03:59
  • Sorry, I had to work quickly. I first created two partitions using a USB key. I created a small partition and kept my files on the big one. I then installed Ubuntu from the USB key to the small partition. I deleted the system folders which were still on the big partition and mounted it as home. I now have a working install. Sorry for all the fuss. – fyusuf-a Sep 25 '14 at 12:06

1 Answers1

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Try 

sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop

Hope it helps.

AbdulRahman
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