Help! a major catastrophe with my Linux Mint installation ...

[joe at actionline.com]

I have been running Linux Mint 17 on several computers
24/7 for a very long time with very reliable performance.

This morning, when I turned on the monitor, the panel
had vanished and I no way to do anything.

I finally found a way to get to the command line and
all of my data appears to be there, but none of my
utilities in my home/bin file work.

Recently, I read that Linux Mint was threatening to
coerce users to upgrade to a newer version. This would
be unconscionable and reprehensible! Is this what they
have done.

I hope someone can help me figure out how to get my
system working again.

Please help.