There is one thing that may help for any future linux installation when one likes to play around(install package etc.), use the loopback file system as the rootfs and put other user stuff(/home etc.) on either another loopback file system or a seperate partition(say for performance or reliability purpose).

In this way, one can easily have a snapshot of a running 'system' and the fallback is much easier. In fact, multiple system can be kept this way. I have a number of these big files around, one for the base debian(text only, about 150M), one for a base X enabled(300M) and another with KDE(500M) and can boot from any of them through the boot loader.

This may not be good for server oriented system though as loopback is usually slower and journal based file system may not be of any use(say I have a ext3 living on FAT, even the ext3 is journal based, if the underlying FAT screwsup, everything screws up).