No Panels,no acces to software - Mint 13 Maya Xfce 32bit

[emtea]

Mint 13 Maya Xfce 32bit
I've been using Linux for quite a while but still consider myself a newbie..
I can hardly do anything at all with my system at the moment.

Lately a message would come up while booting that there was very little space on the partition.
Went to Synaptic to try to free up some...wrong move, it seems.
Now when it boots to the desktop there is a blue background where there was the default Maya one, the icons are large, and there NO panels when there should one at the bottom and one at the top. So I can't access any apps, even by R-click on the desktop as before. The Welcome screen is there and looks normal, and by clicking on Forums I've been able to write this.
Don't know how to open terminal except through recovery mode - and wouldn't know what to do once there anyway.

After using Synaptic that last time I did see a mention of 'Cinammon' when the packages were being re-configured so I fear an 'oil & water' situation.
Almost all of my data is on a seperate partition [just a few things on the desktop] so, if all else fails, the thought of a reinstall doesn't freak me out, but obviously would rather not as this flavour has done well for my old laptop for quite a while.

Very grateful for any helpful advice
Cheers

[Robsteady]

I realize this is a couple days old now and no response was given. I'd love to try to help you out as best I can but I won't get all into it if you've gotten it working again.

[wh7qq]

I'm unsure of the nature of your problem or the specific fix but in the event that you do decide to do a fresh install, use a "live" disk to go in and backup your important data to a USB drive or some other storage media separate from the disk it is on...just in case your separate partition gets messed up with the new install. Good time to switch to Mint 16 xfce anyway.

[emtea]

Thanks for these replies.
I'm still in the same position but have been able to find a roundabout way to update the system by R click on desktop and Change background. From there I can click the All settings tab.
I have backed up my data seperately.

@wh7qq - the main thing for me is that there is no Launcher panel so I have no way of launching apps from a menu.
Your Mint 16 xfce suggestion is noted thanks

@Robsteady - if you want check this before I look into Mint 16 I'd be happy to hear from you mate.

cheers guys

[wh7qq]

@emlea:

Can you open a terminal? In the terminal as user, run

Code: Select all

xfce-panel

If not, try CTL-ALT-F3, log in as user and then run

Code: Select all

xfce-panel

CTL-ALT-F8 returns to desktop.

That has worked for me in the past when the panel disappeared.

[emtea]

@wh7qq
tried the second way and the message was to try 'xfce4-panel'
but that still didn't work.
I have found a roundabout way to do an update. I looked at the software sources there were 2 things unselected, both included 'xfce4' in the path, so I selected them and refreshed.
There were then a number of new files to update and in the list was xfce4-panel.
After restarting a couple of times I have booted into the desktop complete with a panel.
Looks quite different though. The desktop background had a blue stripy effect so looked at changing the wallpaper and there was none there.
Went to Control Centre and in Themes there was just one --- Cinnamon!? I mentioned this in my original post
The system does seem to work okay so far but changing from MATE to Cinnamon was definitely not what I intended so I don't want to mark this post as solved
Any thoughts?