How to reinstall Terminal?

While fixing package dependencies, the terminal application went missing, and now I cannot locate the application. Is there a way to reinstall the terminal application?

Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 (to enter a virtual console), log in with with your account and install the package gnome-terminal with the command:

sudo apt-get install gnome-terminal

When you type passwords into a text-only virtual console, you don't see anything on the screen. That's normal.

Return to Unity (or whatever other desktop environment you're currently running) by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F7.

The Middle Way

This totally non-graphical way, and this totally graphical way, are both excellent. But there is a third way, too.

Ubuntu comes with another (simpler) graphical terminal program that you can fall back on!

If you cannot use the Terminal (for users of other Ubuntu flavors, this applies to the Konsole, Xfce4 Terminal, and LXTerminal, too), you can still use xterm.

Press Alt+F2, type xterm, and press Enter.

Here you can install gnome-terminal with apt-get:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install gnome-terminal

^{You'll notice my command is a little different from Bruno Pereira's. Having recently performed lots of package management, you may not need to run sudo apt-get update. (Unless your dependency problem was from apt-get and you didn't run it with update before, then you definitely need to.) You can decide.}

Ubuntu's xterm is very basic in style. As far as I know, there's no GUI way for xterm to scroll back, save history, change font and font size, or anything like that. The actual shell's capabilities will of course be the same as in any Terminal, since it's still bash. (Or whatever you set it to be.)

Alternatives

If you have a longer-term problem of any kind with the GNOME Terminal, you can use xterm, but it is not as friendly and (in some ways) not as sophisticated as GNOME Terminal.

If you continue to have trouble getting GNOME Terminal working but you're able to install software in general, you can install:

• Xfce's terminal – xfce4-terminal
• LXDE's terminal – lxterminal

You should not use Konsole for this, however, unless you already have KDE installed. Installing it usually pulls in lots of KDE-related packages as dependencies.