Desktop environment got purged

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Abukes
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Desktop environment got purged

Post by Abukes »

Hello, it seems that I have accidentally purged a majority of the system's GUI environment while trying to install CUDA Toolkit on my machine.

While installing new NVIDIA drivers I had them complaining about Nouveau being active and not installing, and having previously made an alias for removing things I removed nouveau, but I forgot I used "sudo apt purge" instead of "sudo apt remove" in the alias, which in turn nuked my desktop environment.

Normally I'd just back-up my data and reinstall the system from live USB, but the thing is I'm working on it remotely, and now I just have access to the terminal using SSH (my machine is running headless with NoMachine server, that's how I mostly dealt with GUI apps when needed).

Is there any way of recreating the Cinnamon desktop environment with just the terminal?

inxi -Fxz output:

Code: Select all

jakobsenserver@jakobsenServer:~$ inxi -Fxz
System:
  Kernel: 5.15.0-56-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.3.0 Console: pty pts/0
    Distro: Linux Mint 21 Vanessa base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: Z170-P v: Rev X.0x serial: <superuser required>
    UEFI-[Legacy]: American Megatrends v: 3805 date: 05/16/2018
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: Intel Core i5-6600K bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Skylake-S rev: 3 cache:
    L1: 256 KiB L2: 1024 KiB L3: 6 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 800 min/max: 800/4300 cores: 1: 800 2: 800 3: 800 4: 800 bogomips: 27999
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GP106 [GeForce GTX 1060 6GB] vendor: eVga.com. driver: nvidia v: 520.61.05
    bus-ID: 01:00.0
  Display: server: X.org v: 1.21.1.3 with: Xwayland driver: X: loaded: modesetting,nouveau
    unloaded: fbdev,nvidia,vesa gpu: nvidia tty: 173x36
  Message: GL data unavailable in console. Try -G --display
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 100 Series/C230 Series Family HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP106 High Definition Audio vendor: eVga.com. driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.1
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.0-56-generic running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: ASUSTeK PRIME B450M-A
    driver: r8169 v: kernel port: d000 bus-ID: 06:00.0
  IF: enp6s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  IF-ID-1: ztasxyuzbv state: unknown speed: 10 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 256.17 GiB used: 164.57 GiB (64.2%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Crucial model: CT275MX300SSD1 size: 256.17 GiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 250.6 GiB used: 164.57 GiB (65.7%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 511 MiB used: 4 KiB (0.0%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda1
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 12 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) file: /swapfile
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 29.8 C mobo: 27.8 C gpu: nvidia temp: 45 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
  Processes: 164 Uptime: 34m Memory: 15.57 GiB used: 901.1 MiB (5.7%) Init: systemd runlevel: 5
  Compilers: gcc: 11.3.0 Packages: 3293 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.16 inxi: 3.3.13
Last edited by LockBot on Sat Jun 03, 2023 10:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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DisturbedDragon
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Re: Desktop environment got purged

Post by DisturbedDragon »

Code: Select all

sudo apt install cinnamon-desktop-environment
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Re: Desktop environment got purged

Post by Pjotr »

How did you install that Nvidia driver? By means of Driver Manager or otherwise?
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Abukes
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Re: Desktop environment got purged

Post by Abukes »

DisturbedDragon wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 9:14 am

Code: Select all

sudo apt install cinnamon-desktop-environment
Tried that, no effect, also now after restart it says "Oh no! Something has gone wrong. A problem has occurred ans the system can't recover. Please log out and try again" and re-logging also has no effect.
Abukes
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Re: Desktop environment got purged

Post by Abukes »

Pjotr wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 10:05 am How did you install that Nvidia driver? By means of Driver Manager or otherwise?
I needed a specific driver (520.61.05) because on the newest one the toolkit complained it couldn't install dependencies, so I did it via Runfile like NVIDIA suggested on their page.
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Pjotr
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Re: Desktop environment got purged

Post by Pjotr »

Abukes wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 11:18 am
Pjotr wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 10:05 am How did you install that Nvidia driver? By means of Driver Manager or otherwise?
I needed a specific driver (520.61.05) because on the newest one the toolkit complained it couldn't install dependencies, so I did it via Runfile like NVIDIA suggested on their page.
That almost always fails, because the Nvidia driver straight from Nvidia, hasn't been adapted to and modified for Ubuntu/Mint. So no surprise there. In the past, I've borked the system on my test rig several times while trying to get the bloody thing to work as it should. In the end I just gave up.

Can you roll back by means of a previous Timeshift snapshot? Restoring a snapshot can even be done from within the live session after booting from a Mint USB stick. I am aware that this is impossible via a remote session, so your presence in person is probably unavoidably needed. But it is what it is. :mrgreen:
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Abukes
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Re: Desktop environment got purged

Post by Abukes »

Pjotr wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 1:16 pm
Abukes wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 11:18 am
Pjotr wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 10:05 am How did you install that Nvidia driver? By means of Driver Manager or otherwise?
I needed a specific driver (520.61.05) because on the newest one the toolkit complained it couldn't install dependencies, so I did it via Runfile like NVIDIA suggested on their page.
That almost always fails, because the Nvidia driver straight from Nvidia, hasn't been adapted to and modified for Ubuntu/Mint. So no surprise there. In the past, I've borked the system on my test rig several times while trying to get the bloody thing to work as it should. In the end I just gave up.

Can you roll back by means of a previous Timeshift snapshot? Restoring a snapshot can even be done from within the live session after booting from a Mint USB stick. I am aware that this is impossible via a remote session, so your presence in person is probably unavoidably needed. But it is what it is. :mrgreen:
I just checked my Timeshift snapshots, and where they were supposed to have been automated, they were turned off since last major update of system in June. So, I'm screwed, and will have to ask a family member to just reset the system (it's your classic 'old gen PC in your parent's basement' scenario) with my guidance, set up SSH again and I'll just transfer the most important files from what I download (just my home possibly, but that alone is like 80GB).

I also took a look into the apt log in /var/log/apt and found out Nouaveu took some system packages with it, so either way I'm screwed no matter what I do, because they got purged and all the config is gone. In case anyone would like to look: https://pastebin.com/Ae9fEeBR

I tried reinstalling all of them too, but am still gettintg the "Oh no" screen whenever I try to do anything with GUI.

Anyways, thanks for the assistance, and note to whomever might stumble upon this:
Do not use "apt purge" on nouveau, ever.
DisturbedDragon
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Re: Desktop environment got purged

Post by DisturbedDragon »

You should be able to just install Mate since it uses different configs and purge cinnamon.
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