====== Reinstall original configuration file from package ====== 1. Find out what package installed the config file: $ dpkg -S unity-greeter.conf unity-greeter: /etc/lightdm/unity-greeter.conf As you can see, the name of the package is unity-greeter. 2. Rename (or delete) the config file you wish to restore: sudo mv -i /etc/lightdm/unity-greeter.conf /etc/lightdm/unity-greeter.conf.bak 3. Run the following command, replacing with the name of the package: sudo apt-get -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confmiss" install --reinstall 4. If everything worked as expected, you should get this message: Configuration file `/etc/lightdm/unity-greeter.conf', does not exist on system. Installing new config file as you requested. A Practical example when needing to reinstall all of the PulseAudio configuration files: apt-cache pkgnames pulse |xargs -n 1 apt-get -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confmiss" install --reinstall