How to restore after accidentally apt-get remove python

Question

Yeah. I've done this. It was stupid.

I did not know it's going to take its dependencies with itself, only wanted to install python 2 and 3 from scratch (because of this problem: https://askubuntu.com/questions/897355/how-to-change-default-idle-for-python).

Now, I can still use my terminal, checked these answers:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/741265/apt-get-remove-python-150mb-apt-get-install-python-687kb

https://askubuntu.com/questions/437644/i-accidentaly-did-sudo-apt-get-remove-python

However after running sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop I get these errors:

Setting up python-ldb (2:1.1.24-1ubuntu3) ...
/var/lib/dpkg/info/python-ldb.postinst: 6: /var/lib/dpkg/info/python-ldb.postinst: pycompile: not found
dpkg: error processing package python-ldb (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 127
No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
                                                              Setting up python-tdb (1.3.8-2) ...
/var/lib/dpkg/info/python-tdb.postinst: 6: /var/lib/dpkg/info/python-tdb.postinst: pycompile: not found
dpkg: error processing package python-tdb (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 127
No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
                                                              dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of python-samba:
 python-samba depends on python-crypto; however:
  Package python-crypto is not configured yet.
 python-samba depends on python-ldb (>= 1.1.2~); however:
  Package python-ldb is not configured yet.
 python-samba depends on python-tdb; however:
  Package python-tdb is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package python-samba (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
                                                              Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.23-0ubuntu7) ...

Errors were encountered while processing:
 mercurial-common
 python-crypto
 python-dnspython
 python-ldb
 python-tdb
 python-samba
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Every apt-get install command throws this.

Is there a way to restore these dependencies?

Answer 1

I did the following and was able to recover my system fully:

1) sudo apt-get update

2) Ran the 4 commands given above by MattSom (thanks to him):

sudo apt-get install --reinstall python python-chardet python-colorama python-distlib python-django python-django-tables2 python-six python-html5lib python-lxml python-minimal python-pkg-resources python-setuptools python-urllib3 python-requests python-pip python-virtualenv

sudo apt-get install --reinstall python-dnspython

sudo apt autoremove

sudo apt-get -f install

But GUI was still not available. I run below to recover that as well:

3) sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop

Answer 2

Hallelujah.

sudo apt-get install --reinstall python python-chardet python-colorama python-distlib python-django python-django-tables2 python-six python-html5lib python-lxml python-minimal python-pkg-resources python-setuptools python-urllib3 python-requests python-pip python-virtualenv

sudo apt-get install --reinstall python-dnspython

sudo apt autoremove

sudo apt-get -f install

After a whole day of adventures in the deepest pits of internet, these commands worked for me.

python-dnspython and samba was still missing after the first command, --reinstall python-dnspython pulled samba in as well. Autoremove removed the needless dependencies.

Naturally some of these could be quite redundant but I was just following some long lost forum posts all over the place and what matters is that it worked.