Ubuntu
unity package

Can't get anything to work except Unity

Asked by Martin Sidaway

At the moment, I am using the standard Unity interface (within xdm). I find it cumbersome for a number of reasons:

1. I can't create arbitrary launchers on the panels, so I can't create a launcher for Matlab, which refuses to start from its main binary (yes, I know, use Octave, but at the moment it is more convenient for me, because of legacy code, to use Matlab).

2. The panel on the left-hand side of the screen is always popping up when I am trying to press the browser back button, or something similarly positioned.

3. I can't see any way to get a panel-mounted volume control to appear. It shouldn't be necessary to have to start a full-blown mixer just to change the system volume, and if the mixer can detect my sound card, why can't Unity?

Anyway, that's enough ranting about Unity. The point is at the moment I can't seem to get anything else to work. I have tried getting Gnome to start under xdm, to no avail (although I don't know exactly how you are supposed to do this, so I may not be doing it right). I have tried gdm, which just hangs on a blank screen with the cursor rotating endlessly. Lightdm and kdm won't even start. They both complain about missing drivers, missing video devices (if I install one of the proprietary drivers), and/or incompatible keyboards.

My video card is an Nvidia 6600gt. At the moment I have only nouveau installed, and xdm is working fine. However, lightdm and kdm both complain about not being able to find "nv" or "nvidia". (They also complain about not being able to initialise the USB keyboard for relative axes.) I have tried messing around with xorg.conf, but got sick of it because nothing makes any difference.

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Chris (fabricator4) said : 		#1

Regarding Unity: if you're using 11.04 you might consider upgrading to 11.10. Unity is being improved all the time and it's getting better. I say this because problems like the launcher popping out by accident have been further addressed in 11.10.

You can't have launchers on the panels - that's what the Launcher is for. To get things to stay in the launcher open it and right click on the icon in the launcher, then "keep in launcher".

You can remove and sort (by dragging off and back on) the launcher icons as well.

There is a volume control in Ubuntu by default: it's in the top panel. If you are missing this it might be an indication of another problem and you should address this specifically in another question. It's possible that you just may need to reset the Unity top panel.

Lastly, to change the DE (desktop environment) you just need to install the required DE and select it from the LightDM login window. It will be remembered for the next boot. You can install Classic Gnome panels if you wish, although there are some differences compared with Gnome 2 in 10.04 and 10.10. There's also plenty of other alternatives available in the repositories and some that are not - Cinnamon appears to be a good alternative and someone has made an Ubuntu PPA for it.

Chris

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Martin Sidaway (msidaway) said : 		#2

Thanks Chris.

Firstly, I'm using 11.10 already. I still seem to suffer launcher pop-out problems.

Actually I knew about the "keep in launcher" thing, and my point was that it wasn't working in the case of Matlab. However, I now believe that even an "arbitrary" launcher (pointing to a particular shell script) wouldn't solve this particular problem, because Matlab expects to see a valid stdin file descriptor; and so this is probably something I should take up with Mathworks.

I am definitely missing the volume control in the top panel. How would I go about resetting the panel?

Anyway, what I really want to do is change DE. However, as I mentioned, I am currently unable to use any DM (display manager) but XDM, which lacks a box in the login window to allow you to choose the DE. I am therefore unable to change DE by the method you mention.

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#3

According to the page 6600 series should be supported, it needs nvidia-current, which can be activated under 'additional drivers' in system-settings, available in top right corner of panel.

Unity support can be tested in a terminal with:
/usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DemystifyingUnityGraphicsHardwareRequirements
https://help.ubuntu.com/11.10/ubuntu-help/index.html

Launcher alternatives.
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/simple-way-to-run-programs-as-root-in-ubuntu-11-10-oneiric.html
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-create-desktop-launchers-in-ubuntu-11-10oneiric.html

Volume control package: indicator-sound

Extract of installed indicators.
~$ dpkg -l indicator* |grep ii
ii indicator-application
ii indicator-appmenu
ii indicator-datetime
ii indicator-messages
ii indicator-power
ii indicator-session
ii indicator-sound
ii indicator-weather

In Oneiric launcher settings can be adjusted via unity-plugin in ccsm (compizconfig-settings-manager).
The common shortcut to reveal is the so called Win-key.
http://askubuntu.com/questions/28086/unity-keyboard-mouse-shortcuts

## Note, ccsm might be deprecated in 12.04 and instead Unity settings are then available with MyUnity or via system-settings -> user interface.

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Chris (fabricator4) said : 		#4

To reset the unity panel see if these instructions work for you:
http://www.webupd8.org/2011/04/how-to-reset-unity-launcher-icons-or.html
If you still don't get the volume control there may be a deeper problem there.

Does XDM not have the menu selection down on the bottom Panel? I think it's easy to miss because it only appears when you select a username.

You can still have a launcher on the desktop, and I believe it is still object oriented so you can drag a data file into it if the launcher is written correctly. The utility for writing launchers appears to be missing but it should be possible to install it, or copy a launcher from an ealier version (eg 10.04) and use it as a template.

Chris

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