Can't get past login.

[duaneh]

Kubuntu 14.04 trusty taar--I log in on boot and get the message: unable to launch "/usr/bin/startkde" x session---"usr/bin/startkde" not found; falling back to default session.. I click okay and get frozen screen. Any way to get to the terminal? Thanks.

[Snowhog]

Ctrl+Alt+F1, if your session is not completely frozen, will get you to a tty login.

[duaneh]

Thanks snowhog. Found "startkde" is gone. What now?

[kubicle]

startkde is in the package "kde-workspace-bin", so make sure you have that installed:
sudo apt-get --reinstall install kde-workspace-bin
if kde-workspace-bin has been removed, you'll probably want to make sure nothing else essential has been removed
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
(this will install all packages that come with kubuntu by default)

[duaneh]

The reinstall of kde-workspace-bin worked and I thank you very much.

[SteveRiley]

As kubicle writes, a good way to verify missing files is to check whether the file's package is installed. The new apt makes this very easy:

steve@t520:~$ [B]apt search startkde[/B]
Sorting... Done
Full Text Search... Done
[COLOR="#B22222"]kde-workspace-bin[/COLOR]/trusty-updates,now 4:4.11.10-0ubuntu0.1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
  core binaries for the KDE Plasma Workspace

If the package isn't installed, the word installed won't appear. But the rest of the output is the same, and from that you can glean which package to install. Here, I've colored it red.