[Solved]I think I caused a problem using chown on filesystem

[Poohblah]

Hi guys, I am very new to linux, just installed ubuntu 9.04 last night. In my ignorace, I used a recursive chown on the whole filesystem. However, now I have several problems which were not present when before. First, I can't shut down by clicking the power button in the upper right corner (doesn't display "Shut Down" option). Second, my wireless has stopped working and the icon for wireless in the panel went away and I can't get it back. Third, I have lost control over sound and backlight brightness. Fourth, I can't access any of my drivers.

That my use of "chown" caused these problems is just a guess. However, now the computer won't let me switch the ownership of anything back to root (I get the error: "sudo: must be setuid root").

What can I do to fix this mess?

[Poohblah]

bigger problem: mouse and keyboard stopped working in linux.

Doing a fresh install of ubuntu.

[dxqcanada]

Ah, why were you doing a chown ?

[Poohblah]

Ah, why were you doing a chown ?

haha that's a good question. Because I wasn't aware of the way Linux works and I realized that I couldn't add/remove files in the filesystem and I thought it was a bug so I "fixed" it.

Like I said, I'm new :P

[dxqcanada]

Ah. beware the power of root.

There is usually a good reason why the system does not permit a normal user to do.