[ubuntu-uk] Help gnome 3 broke my laptop!

[Pete]

On 11/21/2011 02:41 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
> On 20 November 2011 20:05, Pete<psmouty at live.com>  wrote:
>> hi all,
>>
>> I was playing around trying to install gnome 3 onto my Ubuntu 11.04 system,
>> this was done via synaptic, since then I have been given the choice of
>> 'gnome classic, KDE (plasma workspace), Arios (my original system based on
>> Ubuntu), recovery console, unity 2d, user defined session' at login but none
>> of them are my original desktop session and most give the error 'unable to
>> load session' with the option to logout.
>>
>> I have since got the KDE desktop working to write this post.
>>
>> I have 'completely removed' gnome 3 in synaptic but it only removed 1
>> package not the 139 it installed when I installed it!
>>
>> My question(s) are
>>
>> 1/ most important how do I recover my original desktop session?
>> 2/ why did it install the KDE desktop environment without me even trying?
>> 3/ is there a way of listing the packages installed on a certain date/time
>> to ensure I can manually remove them with the hope of restoring my system to
>> it's previous state?
>>
>> thanks in advance (and no I will not be trying to install extra desktops on
>> an existing system again, I will dual boot in future!!)
>
> You shouldn't have done that on 11.04. GNOME 3 breaks Unity in 11.04 -
> this is lavishly documented and when you added the PPA you have been
> presented with multiple warnings which you have chosen to ignore or
> skip.
>
> I suggest you upgrade to 11.10. This is perfectly doable from the
> command-line. It will get you Unity back and working /and/ GNOME 3 if
> you wish. Both at once, which 11.04 cannot do.
>
>
Hi,

Of course your correct, really should read those things :)

I have since managed to install the xfce desktop environment and am 
currently typing this on my own laptop via the very same t-bird as before.

Running upgrade to 11.10 now will report back if my original system 
returns, if not at least I can work on it! Having been spreading the 
Ubuntu / LINUX / UNIX word saying all is fixable if you have enough 
patience reinstalling would be hurtful!

Thanks to all who responded especially Ivan who got me thinking along 
the correct lines!

Regards


Pete