Thank you for your reply.
I made a bo-bo while in aptitude.
I was browsing in system/utilities and was looking for Gparted, so naturally being a windows guy, I hit "g" on the keyboard.
aptitude started uninstalling stuff, beginning with abiword.
When I realized what was happening, I hit ctrl+c and stopped it.
It uninstalled 4 things and I managed to stop at "at"
So using apt-get, I re-installed. abiword and abiword-common, alsa-base, and alsa-utils.
When doing this I got the following message about removing packages that are no longer required.
I don't know if I should do what is suggested. It shows a couple packages I installed earlier in the week. (wifi-radar and dillo)
And there are a lot of libraries that look like they are important.
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
mii-diag libglib1.2ldbl netcat-traditional libpurple0
liblaunchpad-integration1 nano libgsf-gnome-1-114 autofs libgnomevfs2-0
iproute vim-common traceroute libpth20 python-support libvolume-id-dev
libgnome2-0 audacious libidn11 libgstreamer0.10-0 libsasl2 libwrap0
pkg-config libicu38 libgtk1.2 libvorbisfile3 libgnomeui-common
ubuntu-gdm-themes libgnome-keyring0 libident libaudclient1
libavahi-common-data g++-4.2 iputils-ping libsigc++-1.2-dev libconsole
gtk2-engines-pixbuf x11-xserver-utils python-numeric logrotate
ubuntu-artwork libsasl2-modules libbonoboui2-common libpisock9 libts-bin
gconf2 libbonoboui2-0 strace ed xauth libesd-alsa0 libxslt1.1 aptitude
libgomp1 mc xbindkeys libnspr4-0d libcddb2 groff-base ubuntu-wallpapers
esound-common libatm1 gnumeric-common libvorbisenc2 linux-libc-dev libxmuu1
libcwidget3 pidgin-data audacious-plugins libcurl3-gnutls libgadu3 gcc-4.2
xpdf-utils libcdio7 xbindkeys-config tcpd vim-tiny midori guile-1.6-libs
libcompfaceg1 libsexy2 ethtool libhesiod0 libgoffice-0-6-common tasksel-data
libgconf2-4 libffi4 human-theme libgnome2-common libcdio-cdda0 libxaw7
netcat libt1-5 netbase xpdf-reader libsigc++-2.0-0c2a ifupdown
gtk2-engines-ubuntulooks sudo ubuntu-keyring console-tools libonig2
libnm-glib0 libgsf-1-common libgnomeui-0 sylpheed python-central cron
update-inetd libaudid3tag1 python-dbus libidl0 manpages libsigc++-1.2-5c2
wget libsamplerate0 libbonobo2-0 human-icon-theme libbluetooth2 lesstif2
libxtrap6 xautomation libflac8 xinit libaudiofile0 libgoffice-0-6 libmowgli1
dillo pcmciautils tasksel libxss1 gconf2-common libstdc++6-4.2-dev
libgtk1.2-common laptop-detect libldap-2.4-2 libxtst6 gnome-mime-data
libavahi-client3 libc6-dev dmz-cursor-theme liborbit2 xpdf gpgv
libbonobo2-common pidgin libmeanwhile1 libmad0 gnumeric wifi-radar libsysfs2
libsasl2-2 ntpdate libgpgme11 man-db xmahjongg gtk2-engines-murrine
libzephyr3 libpulse0 libavahi-glib1 libgtkspell0 libmcs1 info sysklogd
libvorbis0a libwebkitgtk1d libxp6 libavahi-common3 binutils libguile-ltdl-1
iptables libnss3-1d lsb-release python-gtk2 libsndfile1 python-cairo klogd
libgsf-1-114 libmms0 libneon27-gnutls less libpaper1 xpdf-common gnupg
python-gobject libgnomevfs2-common liblockfile1 libogg0
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.