Issues with Customizing Unity-2D Ubuntu 11.04

Asked by Eric Moon

Issue:

CompizConfig Settings Manager > Ubuntu Unity Plugin > Hide Launcher seems to have no effect on behavior of Unity-2D launcher in relationship to other open windows. Ideally I would like auto hide feature to work but none of the choices seem to do anything different. Specifically, If I maximize a window (Firefox, Terminal, gEDIT, LibreOffice Writer as examples) the left side of the window hides under the Unity-2D launcher. This is the only behavior I can achieve so far and I would prefer if I could modify the settings to either auto hide the launcher or at least keep the windows from sliding underneath the launcher particularly when I maximize a program. Currently I resize the windows and slide them around which is a little inefficient on my laptop.

Your help is appreciated in advance.

Troubleshooting for potential clues to the underlying issue:

1. The Hide Launcher section is not the only part that doesn't seem to make a difference within the CompizConfig Settings Manager. In fact, none of the Ubuntu Unity Plugin modification choices seem to make a difference. I must be missing something or have something "turned on" that is overriding Unity? I have never knowingly used Compiz before 11.04, certainly not the CompizConfig Settings Manager, so forgive me for being a noob here.

2. I wonder if an issue stems from the "Additional Drivers" program under Control Center > Hardware > Additional Drivers I find that my NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (version current) [Recommended] line is green dotted but it says "This driver is activated but not currently in use.

3. When I log in, I log in to the profile that states simply "Ubuntu". It is curious to me that if I do not have Unity-2D installed I am presented with GNOME 2.x or whatever version that is. If I install Unity-2D and log in I am presented with what I am assuming is Unity-2D with the new launcher on the left side of the screen. I highly doubt it is Unity-3D in other words.

My Environment:

Dell Latitude D620 Ubuntu 11.04 64 bit with Unity-2D

I'm running NVIDIA Driver Version: 270.41.06 per the NVIDIA X Server Settings GUI module.

>lshw

           *-display
                description: VGA compatible controller
                product: G72M [Quadro NVS 110M/GeForce Go 7300]
                vendor: nVidia Corporation
                physical id: 0
                bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
                version: a1
                width: 64 bits
                clock: 33MHz
                capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
                configuration: driver=nvidia latency=0
                resources: irq:16 memory:ed000000-edffffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff memory:ee000000-eeffffff memory:ef000000-ef01ffff

What else might be needed to narrow this issue down?

Thanks.

Question information

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Status:
Solved
For:
Ubuntu unity-2d Edit question
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Solved by:
Eric Moon
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Revision history for this message
Eric Moon (tetrasanyu) said :
#1

Okay. I think I have it working now enough to say "problem solved" yet I would like to leave this open a short time to see if there is someone who could help me understand better what I found out.

Following the NVIDIA driver active but not in use pathway I did the following at the terminal:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get --reinstall install nvidia-current

reboot machine
Still the NVIDIA driver is active but not in use.

reboot machine again
Interesting this time I look at my login choices again and see that I can log into Ubuntu Unity 2D. I guess I thought that since 3D doesn't work when logging into just "Ubuntu" that I was logging into Ubuntu Unity 2D.

Well, it made a difference. The NVIDIA driver not in use is still an issue but when I went into CompizConfig Settings Manager > Ubuntu Unity Plugin > Hide Launcher the launcher now changes behavior when I modify this area. GREAT! This is really all I wanted to do for now. [BTW I did have to check the box for Ubuntu Unity Plugin and answer affirmative to the warning about a conflict with Desktop Wall in this login profile "Ubuntu Unity 2D" ]

I'll leave this open for a bit in case someone wants to let me know what's "really go'in on" with the above scenario, but if not I'll change to "Problem Solved."

Hopefully this helps someone else in the same boat.

Revision history for this message
Eric Moon (tetrasanyu) said :
#2

From what I'm reading Unity-2D is low priority. I've got this working well enough. I would still like to know if there is something I can do to improve the experience if there is a "fix" for what I stated above. For any other 2D'ers out there hope this post gets you running.