Restore software from recovery mode?

[yadoyisnow]

Running LMDE, I recently removed much of my software by accident -- including the MATE desktop and Terminal! -- while attempting to install a program whose dependencies I obviously misunderstood. Luckily my software was all backed up, but of course I cannot restore it with backup-manager because I have no desktop!

Is there a way to restore my software_selection.list (including my desktop) through the command line in recovery mode? I'm guessing it should be a snap, but can't figure it out with my limited Linux experience.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[xenopeek]

Boot your system, hold down left shift key to get GRUB boot menu to show, select recovery mode. There, select to drop to the root console. Then run this command to enable writing to disk:

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mount -o remount,rw /

Next, run this command to install your MATE desktop again:

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apt-get install mint-meta-debian-mate

That's assuming your have a working Internet connection. If you are on wireless and it's not working, connect your computer through wired connection for time being.

[yadoyisnow]

Tried this, but there are several unmet dependencies (caja, mate-control-center etc).

At the end of the list it says I have held broken packages.
Hope this doesn't mean I have to reinstall lmde?

Sorry not to paste the code, I am now working from a smart phone!

[xenopeek]

Try doing the following first to refresh package cache:

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apt-get update

Then try:

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apt-get install -f

Which may fix dependency problems.