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cant acccess the classic ubuntu desktop in 11.10

Asked by Mark Jones

I was using the "classic ubuntu" desktop style for my desktop, but when i upgraded from 11.04 to 11.10 I only have the unity desktop, and the classic desktop is unavalable, as are the various themes for windows and icons and gnome art customizations etc How do I get ubuntu classic desktop back?

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Best Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#1

Please open a terminal: ctrl+alt+t
Enter:
sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

Dependencies are listed there.
http://packages.ubuntu.com/oneiric/gnome-session-fallback

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Mark Jones (mark-jones-prom) said : 		#2

hi thanks for that solution - i have now installed the gnome classic desktop. but it still wont allow me to customize (in the Appearances application) of the various windows icons etc by going to the gnome art website and installing the various themes etc. In addition to which, when i log in as root, when i set to gnome classic, the system ignores my choice and goes into unity instead. Is this a bug, and has it been corrected in ubuntu 12?

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#3

Root account isn't supported, using 'sudo' is sufficient.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

Maybe classic wants GDM instead lightdm (lightdm.conf 'seat default' is Ubuntu aka Unity session).

In case install GDM:
sudo apt-get install gdm

then configure login manager:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm

To get comprehensive support rather prefer forums where users also run classic Gnome.
For theme configuration try gnome-tweak-tool.

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Mark Jones (mark-jones-prom) said : 		#4

Thanks - Ive done all that, and its almost back to what it was - exept that when i go to appearances i still am only offered four choices of theme and no link or way of downloading another - but im nearly there. Could you please direct me to a forum where users run classic gnome? Thank for your help.

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#5

Try classical forums like
http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?s=ee41369d95b1b7e5cf2ada59b8e40eec&f=329

or search referring tags on askubuntu.com
Some bloggers also frequently offer hints
e.g.
http://www.webupd8.org/2011/08/installing-using-classic-gnome-desktop.html

Others than that, try irc channels or distro forums which don't prefer Unity.
e.g.
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=121162

You can download themes from your preferred web site and move it to ~/.themes or for system wide usage /usr/share/themes. Assume gnome-tweak-tool should display it then.

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Mark Jones (mark-jones-prom) said : 		#6

Thanks. Problems solved.

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Björn Felten (bfelten) said : 		#7

Thanks amillion, Sam! Problem solved for me too.

What the developers were thinking when they changed to that incredibly stupid GUI in the new versions of Ubuntu is totally beyond me. But it probably will make Windows users hesitate even more before they change to Ubuntu.