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On Ubuntu 16.04, I ran this command on terminal:

sudo rm -rf ~/.config

After this top taskbar is removed, and I can't go anywhere. So, I reboot system from the terminal which was already opened.

After reboot, system boots fine. I have noticed that chrome was removed and there is no wifi indicator on taskbar.

So, I reinstall chrome and ran few commands like

killall unity-panel-service
sudo service network-manager restart
sudo apt-get install indicator-applet indicator-network

to get it back, but nothing.. except I installed chrome again and all logins and history was not removed. (I wonder why those didn't removed with chrome)

And now I'm unable to connect to any other wifi network from System Settings > Network > Wireless.

Solution I need is, wifi indicator back and I should able to connect to other network as I was able to do before..

dessert
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luser
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  • You might want to have a look at safe-rm package, it helps greatly preventing accidental deletions like that. – dessert Dec 21 '17 at 10:45
  • @dessert Solution I need is, wifi indicator back and I should able to connect to other network as I was able to do before.. – luser Dec 21 '17 at 11:03
  • Ubuntu 16.04 LTS – luser Dec 21 '17 at 11:10
  • What was your intent when you deleted .config? Were you intending to loose desktop configurations and start over? You figured out the hard way you can't simply delete this directory. – jdwolf Dec 21 '17 at 11:13
  • I suppose to delete .coby file in same dir. I don't know what I was thinking I quickly tab to auto complete the file name and hit enter, and before I realise what I did, Everything is doomed :/ – luser Dec 21 '17 at 11:17
  • Do you know if your home partition is separate from your root partition? – jdwolf Dec 21 '17 at 11:20
  • I think NO! bcoz sudo fdisk -l shows three partitions (Boot 458GB, Extended 8GB, Swap 8GB). I didn't manually partition at installation time. it's was done automatically by installer. – luser Dec 21 '17 at 11:25
  • you could just have a trash folder in your home directory so if you want to do something crazy like this can just do: mv .config trash. That way you can always mv it back. – john-jones Dec 21 '17 at 11:28
  • I'm asking because the .config contains a lot of user data. You might come back later wondering where a lot of other configurations and settings went as well. – jdwolf Dec 21 '17 at 11:28
  • @HermannIngjaldsson Thanks for you suggestion keep that in mind next time ;).. – luser Dec 21 '17 at 11:31
  • @jdwolf I didn't face any other issue for now, and I have restart ubuntu severals times, this problem happen yesterday. – luser Dec 21 '17 at 11:32
  • Add the output of ls -la ~/.config – jdwolf Dec 21 '17 at 11:53
  • . dconf gtk-2.0 nautilus user-dirs.dirs .. evolution gtk-3.0 pulse user-dirs.locale autostart gedit ibus unity user-share Code gnome-session libaccounts-glib update-notifier compiz-1 google-chrome Mist upstart – luser Dec 21 '17 at 12:18
  • sorry cant post with -l flag, as it extends comment limit. – luser Dec 21 '17 at 12:19
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    @luser: You can [edit] your question to include the information which was asked for. Please do so. – Videonauth Dec 21 '17 at 12:59

3 Answers3

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Because files in /home aren't managed by the package manager reinstalling them won't do anything.

.config contains a lot of files related to the users desktop configuration and application configurations.

.config primarily is configuration for applications where data (like for example your emails if you're using evolution) are stored in .local.

Applications rely on config files it created in .config to work as expected. Some applications may recreate the configs in .config if they are missing but others probably won't if they still see files in .local.

While deleting .config shouldn't break anything it appears to with unity. The configurations are likely not in a default state but a zeroed state.

The culprit seems to be that the indicator applets are suppose to be in Startup Applications but no longer are. Search for Startup Applications in settings and add

jdwolf
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1

I have figure out the solution from another thread (https://askubuntu.com/a/530958/773953), which helped me, +1 to them.

SOLUTION:

[ STEP 1 ]

sudo apt install network-manager-gnome

Install network manager, which might have removed with .config directory like chrome.

nm-applet

Run Applet, network indicator should popup by now.

If you can notice, exiting terminal will remove the indicator. So, you have to add it in Startup Applications.

[ STEP 2 ]

Search and run "Startup Applications" in Ubuntu search.

Startup Applications

Click on Add and write nm-applet in Command field, and Add it.

Startup Apps Dialog Popup

Write nm-applet in Command

Close the dialog popup and reboot you Ubuntu. And it should always be on there(top bar) for YOU.

luser
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0

Try reinstalling network-manager

sudo apt-get install network-manager # if it was removed

or install the indicator applet

sudo apt-get install indicator-applet indicator-network
dessert
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Junius L
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