My PcLinuxos is broken, can you help me?

[Dreamofgilgamesh]

Dear Group i hope you can help me fix my PC.  I installed Pclinux just a month ago and it was working perfectly.
Today i used Synaptic to try to install a program.  I highlighted the program and clicked on "install".  Suddenly Synaptic shut down.  I clicked on the Synaptic icon to restart it and a message appeared to the effect that there was no Synaptic.

Ok i thought, lets restart the PC.  All i get now is a black screen with a white box, the title of which is localhost@localalhost.

There is a field that says "user"  I filled my name in and pressed "enter" another field asked for my password which i entered.  I was then presented with 2 white boxes on the screen with some sort of command prompt in them, both boxes appeared identical.

I'm at a loss chaps, can some kind soul help me out please?

Thanks very much

[aguila]

There are much more knowledgeable people around here then me, but I'm quite sure they would also ask

- which program did you try to install?
- did you do a full upgrade before installing?
- did you get any further error messages?

[Dreamofgilgamesh]

Oh dear! I may have an ides what i did!  I had been trying to import my PGP keys into Kgpg or whatever it is.  I got error messages and in a muddle so foolishly i decided to remove pgp via synaptic and start again.  Looking at the same process on a different PC with a clearer head i can see now that removing it also removed a great many other items.  Could that have been my downfall?

[Just17]

Oh dear! I may have an ides what i did!  I had been trying to import my PGP keys into Kgpg or whatever it is.  I got error messages and in a muddle so foolishly i decided to remove pgp via synaptic and start again.  Looking at the same process on a different PC with a clearer head i can see now that removing it also removed a great many other items.  Could that have been my downfall?

Quite possibly that is the case that you approved Synaptic to remove some necessary packages.

You can get a list of packages from the other PC, and using the command line on the problem PC reinstall them.
After which things should come back right again.

Post the list of packages you would intend to reinstall.

[aguila]

Could he find the history file of Synaptic to figure out what was removed?

[sling-shot]

May be he has removed his desktop environment

Would an "apt-get update" and "apt-get dist-upgrade" help?

Or could try reinstalling the desktop environment with a relevant "task-"?

Is he in OpenBox now? I remember I was dumped in OpenBox or BusyBox or something when I prematurely tried to update my KDE some time back

[muungwana]

Dear Group i hope you can help me fix my PC.  I installed Pclinux just a month ago and it was working perfectly.
Today i used Synaptic to try to install a program.  I highlighted the program and clicked on "install".  Suddenly Synaptic shut down.  I clicked on the Synaptic icon to restart it and a message appeared to the effect that there was no Synaptic.

Ok i thought, lets restart the PC.  All i get now is a black screen with a white box, the title of which is localhost@localalhost.

There is a field that says "user"  I filled my name in and pressed "enter" another field asked for my password which i entered.  I was then presented with 2 white boxes on the screen with some sort of command prompt in them, both boxes appeared identical.

I'm at a loss chaps, can some kind soul help me out please?

Thanks very much

Those two white boxes says X is up and running but the desktop environment couldnt get started because its init script is missing. You must have removed core parts of the desktop environment.

On one of the write screen with a command prompt, type "su" and then press enter followed by typing root's password followed by another enter to get into root's account.

while there, type "synaptic" and then press enter and synaptic should start up.Search and install "tast-kde4-minimum" package log out, log back in and you should be good.

if synaptic isnt there,ie, you get a command not found error, while on root's terminal, type these commands to do on the terminal what the above command does.

apt-get update
apt-get install task-kde4-minimum

[Tony]

I think simply restoring the packages, before complicating things further, may be the best path to take.

Dreamofgilgamesh,

1.) What version of PCLinuxOS are you using ? i.e. LXDE, Full Monty, etc.
2.) Opening Synaptic and clicking FILE, in the toolbar will open a drop down Menu which has a line; "History"
If you look at the last entry, or more you'll get a list of actions; Deleted, Installed, upgraded. That's the info you want.
OR, as Just17 said;

You can get a list of packages from the other PC, and using the command line on the problem PC reinstall them.
After which things should come back right again.

Post the list of packages you would intend to reinstall.

Sorry muungwana, we seem to have posted simultaneously.

Personally, and I'm no expert, however replacing what Dreamofgilgamesh uninstalled should return it to a state were the OS was working, I would feel.
 

Oh dear! I may have an ides what i did!  I had been trying to import my PGP keys into Kgpg or whatever it is.  I got error messages and in a muddle so foolishly i decided to remove pgp via synaptic and start again.  Looking at the same process on a different PC with a clearer head i can see now that removing it also removed a great many other items.  Could that have been my downfall?

[Dreamofgilgamesh]

Thank you all so much for your help, I was rash in doing what I did! I tried the various commands you told me, ie apt-get but they all say command not found.

[muungwana]

try with
/usr/bin/apt-get install task-kde4-minimum

If you still get a "command not found error" then that means apt-get command was removed too. If that is so then i dont see any other way you can get your system back other than to install.

[Just17]

Thank you all so much for your help, I was rash in doing what I did! I tried the various commands you told me, ie apt-get but they all say command not found.

Don't forget

On one of the write screen with a command prompt, type "su" (without quotes) and then press enter followed by typing root's password followed by another enter to get into root's account.

[Dreamofgilgamesh]

Thank you all very much but it's a no go I'm afraid, I'll have to reinstall, serves me right for breaking it.  It was very kind of you all to help me, I'm always amazed at how knowledgeable you chaps are, i'm afraid i've reached the stage where if i learn something new i lose something i used to know.

I hope that if (or when) i get into difficulties trying to reinstall I haven't used up all my credits!

many thanks

[sling-shot]

Does not matter. What matters is that you have learnt something new.

Many of us learn by following a path not advised
-SS.

[Dreamofgilgamesh]

I did it!  I reinstalled the OS and it worked perfectly, i even managed to leave all my settings, files and folders in place.  What an easy process it is.

One final question though.  I know i should update the OS via Synaptic.  I've also read that you should have only 1 repository marked.  Synaptic has 2 marked.  ftp.vim.org and ftp.heanet.  Which one do i chose please?

[TerryN]

The ftp.vim.org is probably the megagames repo (look at the whole path)
The heanet.ie is the main repo

The rule is the that you should only have 1 mirror of a particular repo marked so you are probably OK.  Unfortunately the terms "repo" and "mirror" are often used interchangeably.