default browser in natty? as well as other issues

i also cant have more than one instance of chromium running, and if i minimize a window, it dissapears totally from the desk top.

please tell me how to re install maverick meerkat

i also cant have more than one instance of chromium running, and if i minimize a window, it dissapears totally from the desk top.

please tell me how to re install maverick meerkat

First of all, if you don't like the new interface, don't use it:
http://www.liberiangeek.net/2011/04/change-classic-ubuntu-desktop-ubuntu-11-04-natty-narwhal/

Second, you are going to have to provide WAY more information about what happens when you try to run Firefox, in order for it to be possible to help you. This may come as a surprise to you, but sometimes computer programs do different things when they are run in different ways by different people who are using them to do different things on different computers. If Firefox is not working for you, that's probably because something is going on for you that was not experienced by the hundreds of users who tested it intensively for months prior to Natty's release.

Third, switching between open windows is not more complicated with Unity than with a Classic Desktop, but it is different (except insofar as Alt+Tab still works the same way), so you can either keep using the new interface until you get a hang of it, or you can go back to using the old interface as explained above (nothing wrong with that), or some combination of the two.

Fourth, please describe the problem you're having in Chromium in greater detail. I am using Chromium on Natty, and I don't have that problem. If the problem is just that you're not used to the Unity interface, then you can switch between different windows in an application using the following methods (and yes, I have tested this in a Unity desktop with Chromium for switching between a maximized Chromium window showing eBay and the second Chromium window that is spawned after clicking an image to see its expanded view):

(1) Hold down Alt and press Tab repeatedly to switch between all the windows of all currently running applications. When you release Alt, the selected window will be shown.

(2) Click on the application's icon in the Unity launcher (if the launcher is hidden due to the application's window being maximized, or for any other reason, you can unhide it by moving the mouse pointer to the edge of the screen where it appears). Then the application's windows become small and you can click on whichever one you want to use.

(3) Minimize the window that's in your way, and then the other window will be visible, unless it, too, is minimized.

"i also cant have more than one instance of chromium running"

Actually, that's true, but that is also the case in Maverick (though we have to define "instance" in an interesting way for it to be meaningful for a multi-process application like Chromium).

I think what you mean is that you cannot open additional Chromium windows by clicking on the Chromium icon in the Unity launcher. (A window is not the same thing as an instance.) That is true--that's because clicking on the icon of a running program serves a different function than you're used to (see my previous post). However, it is still quite easy to spawn a new Chromium window: When you're in Chromium, press Ctrl+N, or click the wrench icon to the right of the URL bar and click New Window.

"and if i minimize a window, it dissapears totally from the desk top."

Minimizing windows in a Classic Desktop (like what you're used in Maverick) also causes them to disappear totally from the desktop. However, in a Classic Desktop, there is a bottom panel with a Window List, which contains entries for your application windows (including minimized windows). As you have pointed out, the bottom panel and window list are not present in a Unity desktop. Instead, you can access your minimized windows using the techniques I described in my previous post. Or, like I said, just switch to using a Classic Desktop. (Again, I'll emphasize that you don't need to go back to Maverick, to use the Classic Desktop again.)

"please tell me how to re install maverick meerkat"

You probably know how to reinstall Maverick, because you installed it once (or installed a previous Ubuntu release and upgraded to Maverick), but if you're asking about downgrading, then (assuming you still want to go back to Maverick now that you know about the Classic Desktop in Natty) you'll be sad to hear that Ubuntu doesn't support (and never has supported) downgrading. Instead, you should offload any documents and other important files (e.g., music, videos) so you don't lose them, then install Maverick and instruct the installer to erase and replace the existing Natty system. If you prefer, you can manually remove the partitions associated with the Natty system in the GParted Partition Editor on the live CD first (then you can run the installer by double-clicking on the Install Ubuntu icon on the desktop).

But it sounds like your objection to Natty is Unity. Not everyone likes Unity. Many people like it once they open their minds to it and use it for a while, but some don't. That's one of the reasons why a fully functional Classic Desktop that works just like the one you're used to using in Maverick is included in Natty (and as far as I know, there is no plan to remove that in any future releases).

thanks for the answer:)

please bear in mind that i'm a real noob, and just want a nice easy computing experience, having been disillusioned with the fact that windows always tells you what you want to do, and found that ubuntu gives the choice back to the user.

i'm using a toshiba equium a200-196, straight out of the box, as it were, with no hardware changes or after market cards.

i'm keeping going back to classic view as an option for now, as i'd like to persevere with the upgrade, to me thats the beauty of linux, the ability to ask these questions and get the support :)

sipmly put, when i click the firefox button, nothing happens!
there are no error messages, its just as if the button is dead.
if you then try to start firefox again, you get a message saying that firefox is already running and not responding, and you have to shut it down before you can open it again.
shutting down the machine gives you the message that firefox.bin is not responding, and do you want to force it to close.

on the chromium issue.
whilst browsing ebay, if i click to enlarge an image, the picture opens in a new window, but this window has no control buttons, it cant be minimized, maximised or closed.
if you then go to the sidebar, press the chrome button to see all the open windows, and choose to go back to the main page, and then repeat to see the enlarged picture, the buttons are there. this seems to be a little long winded to just enlarge a picture then close it!
holding down alt and tab doesnt work either, i have 10 windows open in chrome as i write this, but using alt and tab only gives me the choice of the window which i have maximised.
also, if i click an image in google images, again using chrome, the webpage containingthe picture opens, and not a preview of the picture, as it used to.( only a small inconvenience, but they do add up!)
one thing i have not tried is totally removing both chromium and firefox, and re installing them would this be a good idea?

as i'm typing this, i am trying things, which is why it may seem a bit disjointed!

will using alt and tab only show the windows open in the workspace which i am viewing?

thanks for your help:)

seems like i was typing when i should have been reading your second answer!

i think you're right, and it'l just take me a bit of time to get used to unity!

anymore info you need to help with the firefox issue?

"seems like i was typing when i should have been reading your second answer!"

Is that to say that you have resolved all the problems you had with Chromium's usability? Do you still have any questions about any of the topics you've brought up in this thread, *besides* Firefox? Should I still attempt to provide specific answers to the questions you asked in your previous post, other than those about Firefox?

"anymore info you need to help with the firefox issue?"

The information you have provided so far is quite useful, but yes, it has made it possible for me to ask for more specific information:

You said you've been using a classic desktop. Does Firefox work in the classic desktop (just not with Unity), or does it not work then either?

Also, did Firefox ever work, or did it always fail to start? Were you ever able to get a Firefox window to come up?

Also (and if Firefox works in a Classic Desktop but not with Unity, then please make sure to use Unity, so that we are examining it in the environment where the problem occurs...whereas if it fails to work in both, then either one is fine), please open a Terminal window (Ctrl+Alt+T), type "firefox" without the quotes, and press enter. Wait a few minutes, then select all the text in the Terminal (Edit > Select All), copy it to the clipboard (Edit > Copy), and paste it here. Then, without doing anything in that Terminal window, create a new Terminal window (Ctrl+Shift+N), or, if you prefer, a new tab in the same Terminal window (Ctrl+Shift+T), and run this command (I recommend copying and pasting this rather than manually retyping it, as the former is faster and easier and reduces the chance of typos):

ps ax | grep -v grep | grep firefox

Then select all the text from that Terminal window/tab, copy it to the clipboard, and paste it here as well. (Make sure it's obviously separate from the other text you've already pasted.)

i still have the issues with chromium, as detailed, i think that i understand the alt tab issues, as it seems that i had chromium open on different workspaces, and alt tab only displays the windows open in the visible workspace. am i correct in this assumption?

the issue regarding enlarging a picture from ebay seems only to be in ebay, i tried another site (edisposals.com) and enlarging pics from there worked ok.

regarding firefox, i have not tried a classic desktop with natty narwhal, but was quite happily using firefox pre upgrade. using ubuntu 10 10.

i opened a terminal, typed firefox, pressed enter.
an error message appeared in a dialog box, the terminal window stayed blank, saying
Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system.
i clicked "ok" and the terminal window returned to the standard prompt.
there is no indication anywhere that firefox is running, and typing "killall firefox" in the terminal window returned the message below

milly@milly-EQUIUM-A200:~$ firefox
milly@milly-EQUIUM-A200:~$ killall firefox
firefox: no process found
milly@milly-EQUIUM-A200:~$

(i know to use killall as a command to stop a process from my adventures with midi!)

i am now going to restart, and use classic to try firefox, and will try the issues for chrome as well.
i will then restart again in unity and complete the steps you asked for and post the resuts, please bear with me :)

"i still have the issues with chromium, as detailed"

(quoting from and responding to your previous post)

"whilst browsing ebay, if i click to enlarge an image, the picture opens in a new window, but this window has no control buttons, it cant be minimized, maximised or closed."

That is very strange, and not what happens to me. What happens when you press Alt+Spacebar? Can you post a screenshot? (You can press Alt+F2, type in screenshot but don't press enter, and click on Take Screenshot. Please note that https://answers.launchpad.net doesn't support attachments, but you can post the screenshot on the web, for example, at http://postimage.org, and link to it in your post here.

"if you then go to the sidebar, press the chrome button to see all the open windows, and choose to go back to the main page, and then repeat to see the enlarged picture, the buttons are there. this seems to be a little long winded to just enlarge a picture then close it!"

That's strange--I look forwarding to hearing whether or not Alt+Spacebar does anything, and seeing a screenshot. If it weren't for this, I would have suggested that perhaps what you're getting when you click on an image is not a new window at all, but just an overlay on the page within the old window. (This would be a web design element, rather than part of Ubuntu's interface.) I guess I'll still suggest that...I'll just realize that's likely not what's going on. One way to test for that is to see if you can close the image by clicking once on it, and also by shrinking the original Chromium window down pretty small before clicking on the image, and then seeing if the enlarged image is bigger than the original window.

(done quoting from and responding to your previous post)

"i think that i understand the alt tab issues, as it seems that i had chromium open on different workspaces, and alt tab only displays the windows open in the visible workspace. am i correct in this assumption?"

Yes, that's correct.

By the way: By default the workspace switcher is one of the items in the Unity launcher. Clicking and dragging is used to move windows between workspaces, so right-clicking is used to select and switch to a workspace.

I'll reply about Firefox soon.

You've been running "killall firefox". That's a good guess, since firefox is the name of the command you run, to start Firefox. But the running Firefox process is not called firefox. It's called firefox-bin. (This is because Firefox is started with a shell script called firefox, but that shell script ultimately runs firefox-bin.)

Please run the following commands, in this order. No matter what happens (with one exception, detailed below), please try run each command:

ps ax | grep -v grep | firefox
killall firefox-bin
ps ax | grep -v grep | firefox
killall -KILL firefox-bin; firefox
ps ax | grep -v grep | firefox

It is intentional that the first, middle, and last commands are the same. If (a) the fourth command actually starts Firefox successfully, and (b) after running it and quitting Firefox you are able to run Firefox again in the usual way (i.e., clicking on it in the Unity launcher), then there's no need to run the last command. If that happens, then log out and back in (or reboot), and see if Firefox is still fixed.

Then please select all the text in the Terminal, copy it to the clipboard, paste it here, and also describe what happened when you ran the fourth command.

i have restarted in classic, on shutting down i recieved a message that firefox was still running,
took a screen shot, but dont know how to put the file in here, (or if i can) the message said

a program is still running:

firefox-bin

interrupting the program may cause you to lose work

i clicked the restart anyway button

after restarting in classic, firefox still will not start, as in unity

i then opened chromium, and went to ebay, enlarging a picture worked just fine, one thing i noticed was that when i did this in classic, the picture opens in a window which is wholly visible on my screen, ie all four edges of the window can be seen. in unity this is not the case, it opens and takes up all the screen, and seems to overlap the edges.
is it possible that my graphics card is not compatible with unity?

i then restarted from calssic, and got the same error message regarding firefox-bin.

now running in unity again.
the following is the result of running "lspci" in a terminal window

milly@milly-EQUIUM-A200:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family SMBus Controller (rev 02)
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5001 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 01)
06:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
06:04.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
06:04.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
06:04.3 SD Host controller: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller
milly@milly-EQUIUM-A200:~$

i have tried entering "firefox" in a terminal window, and after over ten minutes there was still nothing displayed. when i closed the terminal window it said a process was still running. how long should this process take?

again, i was working on it while you were answering me! i have posted a screenshot of what happens when i enlarge a picture in ebay (thanks for the how-to)
http://postimage.org/image/1ztuyzs1w/

presing alt-spacebar does give me the option to unmaximise, and minimize the picture, and, as you said, with the ebay window brought down to approx half the size of my screen, enlarging the picture does produce an image that fills the screen, but unmaximising it still produces a picture that is larger than my screen! is it possible that this is a display issue sfter all?

now to run the terminal commands you asked for
As said above "firefox" produces an interminable wait,
however i will press on with the following commands
ps ax | grep -v grep | firefox

i ran this command about ten minutes ago, and so far have had no response in the terminal, is this likely to take a long time?

"i ran this command about ten minutes ago, and so far have had no response in the terminal, is this likely to take a long time?"

Yes, it will likely take forever, or until it is terminated. So open a separate Terminal window (or tab) in which to run the other commands.

After running all the commands, you can stop the original firefox command by going to the original window/tab and pressing Ctrl+C.

Let's focus on the Firefox issue first, and then we'll work on the Chromium issue.

After running those commands and posting the output, please log in as a different user and see if Firefox works for the different user. If you only have one user account, you can create a new user account for this purpose. You can do that in System > Administration > Users and Groups (from a classic desktop) or in System Settings > System > Users and Groups (from a Unity session). Log off and log on as the other user, and see if the other user can run Firefox.

If the other user can run Firefox, then that means the problem is specific to your user account, and is likely the result of problems importing your profile from Firefox 3.6.16 (in Maverick) to Firefox 4.0 (in Natty). If the other user cannot run Firefox, then that suggests that there is actually something wrong with your Firefox installation, or (less likely) a bug in Firefox 4.0 that is triggered by something special about your machine or your system-wide configuration.

After you provide that information, I'll reply with information about the next diagnostic step (or perhaps with a proposed solution).

running
ps ax | grep -v grep | firefox
produces no output
running in a new window
 killall firefox-bin
kills ps ax.....
running ps ax... again returns no output
running killall -KILL firefox-bin; firefox (again in new window,)
terminated ps ax ...
running ps ax... again produces no output

logging in as different user

hmmm, why didnt i try this sooner? posting this using firefox from a different user account!
and no surprise to learn that a quick check of chromium seems to indicate that it is operating with no issues!!

Yes, chromium and firefox both work fine with my new user account

no probs about the mistake, everyone makes them :)

ok, firefox now works, but all bookmarks had gone, and there seemed to be no option to rename? not a major issue, but thought i should mention it

chromium is still misbehaving in my main user account as before

Thanks Eliah Kagan, that solved my question.

"ok, firefox now works, but all bookmarks had gone, and there seemed to be no option to rename?"

You renamed your profile when you ran the command "mv ~/.mozilla ~/.mozilla.old". Press Alt+F2 and run "nautilus /home/milly/.mozilla". The places.sqlite file contains your old bookmarks (see http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles). See if the information at http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/how-do-i-use-bookmarks?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=Bookmarks#w_how-do-i-import-export-or-back-up-bookmarks and http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Backing%20up%20and%20restoring%20bookmarks enables you to restore your old bookmarks. If not, please post again.

Since the Chromium issue (a) is clearly a technical problem rather than an interface mixup, since it goes away for the new user account, and (b) may be nontrivial to fix, since removing the most common chromium-specific files didn't work, you should post a new, separate question about that problem. That question should link to this one, but it should restate the Chromium problem and summarize what you've tried so far. It should also contain a link to the screenshot you took. Once you've posted that new question, you may want to post a link to it here. (If you do, I'll make sure to subscribe to it and, if nobody else helps you first, continue helping you with it.) To create the new Chromium question, you can use https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chromium-browser/+addquestion.

i now have all my firefox bookmarks back, and will post a new question regarding chromium

thanks a lot for your help :))))

just one further bit of information on the firefox problem, we have another account on the computer, which was also brought over from 10 10, including, i guess the firefox profile for that account, when that account was logged onto 11 04 for the first time, both firefox and chromiun worked ok. so i guess that the issues are specific to the main user (also administrator) account. tyhe other account is only a user account, with no admin priveleges.

thanks,
matt

i've posted the new question

its question#106580

:)

lol, sorry, but i put the wrong number in the past post.

the new question is Question #155080

my bad!!

"so i guess that the issues are specific to the main user (also administrator) account."

Yes, it's likely that this was due to some bug in Firefox 4.0 which prevents it from running correctly when the user profile has specific characteristics inherited from Firefox 3.6.16 and earlier. There was probably something in your profile that triggered this bug. That was probably not related to that account having administrative privileges, however (except insofar as the account with administrative privileges was probably also the account you used most, and which thus was most likely to accumulate data in general, and thus was most likely to accumulate data that would trigger such a bug).

just to add a little more information, we are currently updating another computer in our house from 10 10 to 11 04, and i will post here as to whether there are any issues with firefox on that computer.