Internet connection in rescue mode

[rob stone <floriparob@tpg.com.au>]

Hello,

I bought a new HP printer and in order to set it up you need to access
123.hp.com. From there I downloaded hplip-3.25.2.run.

What a disaster. It deleted ALL programs such as evolution, firefox,
gnome, etc.

I can start my laptop in recovery mode, but no connection to the
outside world. I can run "dpkg -l | grep firefox" and it will tell me
that only the configuration file is present.

If I run "ifup --all" it turns on the wifi antenna but the discovery
phase times out and no connection is obtained.

So I need help in finding out exactly "how" to make it connect in
recovery mode in order to run apt and restore my laptop to working
again.

TIA,
Robert