Got myself in a bind

[Paolo Galtieri]

I'm running F19 with all the latest updates.  I did something as a 
normal user that has made my system unusable.  I'm running the mate 
desktop and here are the issues I'm having:

1) No applets in the notification area except the date/time applet.

2) Only one of 2 Ethernet interfaces comes up.  Even after rebooting.

3) The only desktop I can use is Mate, there is no option for me to 
choose something else.

4) Why is one network interface labeled em1 and the other enp4s4?

What I did that may have caused the problem is to change the name of the 
network interface as shown in nm-applet.  nm-applet showed the name as 
enp4s4 while ifconfig showed it as p5p1.  After I did this I could no 
longer get that interface to start.  I tried deleting the interface and 
adding it back in and I still could not get the interface to come up. 
In fact at some point in time after stopping and restarting Network 
Manager the p5p1 interface no longer showed up in nm-applet. Finally I 
killed nm-applet assuming it would restart, but nothing happened.  I 
tried to add the notification area back in, but this doesn't work.  I 
can click on add to panel and select the notification area and click on 
add, but nothing happens.  I even tried logging in as a different user 
and there was no nm-applet in the notification area.  Running ps showed 
nm-applet to be running as the user id I was logged in as, but it didn't 
show up in the notification area.

So how the F*** do I get the notification area restored? and how the 
F*** do I get Network Manager to see and configure both network interfaces?

Of course I can re-install F19 and re-download all the updates, but I 
hope there is a better way than that.


Paolo