Reinstalling Ubuntu via Terminal

Question

I've currently encountered some issues with ubuntu causing me to be stuck in tty mode. I already tried fixing the issue but since I'm not sure of what really happened for this issue to occur I now just want to reinstall ubuntu. I was wondering if there is a way to reinstall ubuntu via terminal? I'm currently running 12.04.4 lts and I already tried the command line: sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh -a But that didn't do anything (after ~10 min of nothing happening a new command line appeard, I tried to restart but nothing changed)

Any help is highly appreciated Thanks

Answer 1

Reinstall Ubuntu Operating System

You can install programs/applications via Terminal, but in neither case an operating system. The Terminal is good and you can do a lot of things with it, but this time you will need more than only the Terminal to reinstall Ubuntu.

Please read the following community wiki to find out what you need:

• How To Reinstall Ubuntu

Reinstall Ubuntu desktop system

If you are referring only to the Ubuntu desktop system package, then you can use the following command to reinstall it:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop

Answer 2

Trying to recover from a failed update between Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04. The update was locked, the only to get out of it was to reboot the computer, and after reboot, I was presented with the terminal prompt and it would not launch Ubuntu desktop.

I followed your suggestion :

sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop

It did not work, system told me to do :

sudo dpkg --configure -a" first. 

Which I did.

A new :

sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop

failed and suggested to do :

sudo apt-get -f install

Back to a

sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop

This one terminated. I shutdown the computer. During Shutdown I noticed it was displaying Ubuntu countdown. Good sign. I restarted again the computer, and it start to load as usual and launch Ubuntu desktop Unity. Success. Thanks for the tips !