Fresh Install of GUI

[melvyndrag]

Hello,
Ideally:
There is a walkthrough somewhere online someone can point me to that will show me how to reinstall x11 and gnome so I have a GUI again.I am hoping for something like this:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=12256

The problem:
I don't know if the following information is specific enough for anyone to make heads or tails of it. There are MANY THREADS ONLINE about these same error messages I have gotten. I would ideally like a good reference that would explain x11 and gnome to me.

Wheezy boots to tty1 now. When I type "startx" all I see is a black screen and the cursor. I hit ctrl+alt+del and go back to the command line. There it says :
The XKEYBOARD Keypmap compiler (xkbcomp) reports:
> warning: compat map for group 2 redefined
> using new definition
> warning: compat map for group 3 redefined
> using new definition
> warning: compat map for group 4 redefined
> using new definition
Errors from xkbcomp are not fatal to the X server

I checked my xorg.0.log file, and in there I have a few errors.
My x11/cyrillic font is gone,
var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType was deleted.
and
"Falling back to old probe method for vesa"
and
"Falling back to old probe method for fglrx"

The dumb things I did:
In the last two days I put jessie in my sources list because I wanted to get python3.4.0.
Also, I did:
sudo apt-get install python-numpy python-scipy python-matplotlib ipython ipython-notebook python-pandas python-sympy python-nose
Then i did an update.

Then I wasn't sure what to do, so I did sudo apt-upgrade, because I didn't know what to do, and an upgrade sounded like a step in the right direction.
Then I did a full-upgrade, because the regular upgrade didn't work, and I was sure a full-upgrade would work some kind of miracle.

[dasein]

The dumb things I did:
In the last two days I put jessie in my sources list because I wanted to get python3.4.0.

I don't mean to pick on you. Truly I don't.

But this post needs to be paraded through the town square, because we get folks asking all the time if a repo mix-and-match like this is safe to do.

We always say no.

The Wiki says no.

Existing threads where people have similarly borked their system all implicitly say no.

But then these folks want to argue, and post irrelevancies like, "Well, J. Random Blogger says he tried it, and that his system is running just fine..."

And besides, they continue, Linux is all about freedom, right? (Including the freedom to bork your system.) The naysayers are just a bunch of freedom-haters. They are only trying to steal other folks' joy.

Anyway... just for the record... for the benefit of the countless souls whom I will point towards this thread...

This is why we say no!

Your post makes it sound like you did a dist-upgrade. If I'm hearing right, welcome to the world of Debian's Testing release. Get used to intermittent and unpredictable breakage.

The quickest path to recovery is to restore from a recent backup. (You make those, right?)

The second quickest path is to reinstall Stable.

The remaining option is to get all leet and try to "downgrade" back to Stable. But even if one imagines that that's possible (and not inherently risky), no one has ever produced data to suggest that it is in any way quicker than a restore/reinstall. And it's unquestionably a lot more effort.

[melvyndrag]

Your answer is exactly what I expected and feared. I new I would break it get crazy and do something stupid, so Ive been backing everything up on two hard drives. So Im going to do a new install. Dang it.

[dasein]

Your answer is exactly what I expected and feared.

My heartfelt thanks to you for your gracious response. And kudos to you for being prescient enough to recognize that a recent backup would likely be required. If you hadn't listened to that cautionary little voice, I'm guessing your pain would be much worse right now.

I wish I had better news. But hey, we learn from our mistakes, right?

(Learning from others' mistakes is always less painful, of course. Maybe this thread will help a few folks avoid your pain. So again, thanks.)

[sunrat]

A very easy way to avoid having to reinstall after doing something dangerous and breaking your system is to do a full partition backup of your OS. I use and recommend Clonezilla. It takes only a few minutes to backup 10GB from my system partition to external HD and a few minutes to restore. If you have separate /home, /boot or other partitions you should back them up too.
Clonezilla is best run from live CD or USB. Clonezilla Live from http://clonezilla.org/ . It is also included on some other live CD systems such as PartedMagic.

[stevepusser]

Yes, best practice is to keep /home on a separate partition, then just reinstall the OS if necessary and you don't have a system backup.. If you can create a Live USB from a LiveCD or DVD, even better. You can reinstall from that in a minute or two on a modern machine, and it serves as an emergency repair boot, too.

[dasein]

Which is why sunrat's sig is a Hall of Fame candidate

[melvyndrag]

Hey on stack exchange they dont like "thank you" type of responses. I dont know if the same goes here, but thanks for all the suggestions.

[Randicus]

Then Stack Exchange is a strange place. Thanking people for help is both polite and lets those who help you know their help is appreciated.