I was trying to remove some icon off my Debian desktop's top panel when this happened. I right clicked on that top panel and clicked 'Delete this panel' without thinking much and wooosh.. my panel is no more! :)
The following link outlined these few tips for me to recover my panel
source: http://aftami.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/restore-deleted-panel-ubuntudebiantop-or-bottom/
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The following link outlined these few tips for me to recover my panel
1. gconftool-2 – -shutdown
2. rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
3. pkill gnome-panel
Reboot
source: http://aftami.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/restore-deleted-panel-ubuntudebiantop-or-bottom/