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18.04 on Virtualbox boots into tty1, unable to reinstall desktop or install other desktop

bq flag

Running Virtualbox 7.0.4 with Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS, kernel 5.3.0-26 (school project, may not be upgraded from 18.04). It shows purple screen for a few seconds before booting into terminal.

I've tried following others solutions, sudo apt-get udpate && sudo apt-get upgrade gives me 0 changes. Done sudo apt-get autoremove and sudo apt-get clean.

sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop gives me Package ubuntu-desktop is not available, but is reterred to by another package. This may mean that the package is missine, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another sOUrCE E: Package *ubuntu-desktop' has no installation candidate

What would my next step be, apart from fully reinstalling Ubuntu?

Edit 26/1 11.18: Trying sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop gives me a long list of "Depends: xxx but it is not installable" and "Depends: is not going to be installed", and also "Recommends: xxx but is not going to be installed/is not installable" followed by "Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages".

Edit 26/1 13.55: @nobody gave me a link to restore default repos in /etc/apt/sources.list. While I still can't install ubuntu-desktop, I finally managed to install xubuntu-desktop. After that I just recovered some files I wanted and recovered from a snapshot. While my main problem didn't get a solution, this is "good enough" for now. I have a snapshot before recovering and would love to test more solutions.

guiverc avatar
cn flag
Your details somewhat clash; Ubuntu 18.04.3 used the 5.0 kernel, with 5.3 only appearing with 18.04.4 (*though for a few weeks prior to 18.04.4 release a 18.04.3 system did run with 5.3, as the version change from .3 to .4 occurs when all upgrades have occurred; https://fridge.ubuntu.com/2020/02/12/ubuntu-18-04-4-lts-released/ shows the ISO release date, but installed systems upgraded before then & it's a few weeks before that for 18.04.3 to have 5.3 kernel*). I'd suggest running `sudo apt update` & read the messages; are they all there? are there any warnings? errors? as your system is dated
Jackiie avatar
bq flag
@guiverc `sudo apt update` gives "Hit:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease Hit:2 htto://archive.camonical.com/ubuntu bionic Infelease Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information.. . Done All packages are up to date"
nobody avatar
gh flag
Does this answer your question? [Restore default apt repositories in sources.list from command line](https://askubuntu.com/questions/586595/restore-default-apt-repositories-in-sources-list-from-command-line)
Jackiie avatar
bq flag
@nobody I think it may have helped one step, as it now finds ubuntu-desktop. I get "2 not upgraded" with `update` and `upgrade`. Still get: "ubuntu-desktop :Depends: gdm3 but it is not goine to be installed Same with gnome-control-center, gnome-settines-daemon, gnome-shell, nautilus, ubuntu-session Recommends: enome-initial-setup but it is not going to be installed, same with nautilus-share. Also broken packages.
Jackiie avatar
bq flag
@nobody It did let me install xubuntu now, and boot into it. That's one step forward. If this is all I need I'll update my question later, but I'm still going to try and get ubuntu working.
karel avatar
sa flag
Does this answer your question? [How do I restore the default repositories?](https://askubuntu.com/questions/124017/how-do-i-restore-the-default-repositories)
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