Installed 12.04 on a dual boot with XP, I don't like it and want to go with 10.04

[jukingeo]

Hello all,

I am putting a new system together and I made the mistake of installing a 'newer' version of Ubuntu without first checking it out. I am currently used to using version 10,04 which I have on my computer, but for my wife's new computer I installed 12.04 as this was the latest LTS version. However, the thing I didn't contemplate on is that everything is totally changed.

1) taskbar is on top (can't move it to the bottom, or at least I don't know how to move it now)
2) start button is on the right, not left (can't seem to move that either)
3) max, min, close buttons are on the left side (whereas older versions of Ubuntu and Windows have it in the 'normal' right position....and yes, it seems you can't move that either).
4) minimized windows are on the left (???)
5) I can't find the terminal as I want to edit grub so Windows is the defaut.

Needless to say, since this is going on my wife's computer and I am having trouble finding my way around, she will NEVER get it.

Granted 12.04 is pretty and does have a nice 'wow' factor. But being intuitive it isn't...I have to teach my wife this and as such 12.04 has to go.

What I would like to do is set up my old version of Ubuntu, 10.04 on a dual boot WITH WINDOWS AS DEFAULT ON BOOTUP on my wife's machine. How do I do this without obliterating her Windows partition?

Thank You,
Geo

[ibjsb4]

You can install Gnome Classic which looks like 10.04 to your current 12.04 install and choose at login by clicking on the login icon.

sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Pr...eClassicTweaks

[jukingeo]

You can install Gnome Classic which looks like 10.04 to your current 12.04 install and choose at login by clicking on the login icon.

sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Pr...eClassicTweaks

Hello,

Ok, I did get my old directory structure back and my open windows show up at the bottom, however, the main taskbar is still on top and the min,max,restore icons still appear on the left. Any way to change those back?

I had another thought...would it be possible to change the entire desktop gui to something like KDE or XFE to get the 'old' desktop back, but yet still keep with the current LTS version?

Thank you for your help....in the very least, I found my terminal so I can properly change my grub settings. The machine now boots to Windows first.

Geo

[ibjsb4]

How to change your min/max to the right is covered in the classic tweaks link.

Another thing, to change panel options now takes Alt + right click on a blank spot.

Want the XFCE desktop? You could try either the desktop install or the full install to your current install.

Desktop

sudo apt-get install xfce4

or full install

sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

[marianoa]

Hi junkingeo,

I'd suggest you to try and get used to the new interface, is not that bad after using it for a few hours and I personally find it better than the old one. To answer your questions

- Moving the window buttons
Open dconf-editor, search for "metacity" and among the settings related to metacity you can find a variable called "button-layout", it should have the value "close,minimize,maximize:" and you should change it into ":close,minimize,maximize" that is move the colon at the beginning of the string, changing the order of the elements listed in the string changes the order of the corresponding buttons in the window titlebar

- Installing xfce or kde interfaces
In order to get xfce or kde guis you should install the packages xubuntu-desktop and kubuntu-desktop respectively, after installing either of them you should be able to select the gui you want to use at the login window. These packages have many dependencies, if you've installed you system recentely maybe it's better to reinstall it using a different ubuntu flavor (xubuntu or kubuntu) but I imagine it's useful to try them first

Hope it helps!

[SuperFreak]

XFCE is a good intuitive DE but you might also try Cinnamon DE (HERE) which I have found to be very user friendly and more like the older style of Ubuntu and also XP
It has most of the features you are after and is highly configurable (for example you can have the task bar at top, bottom or both and can adjust the width of it also window buttons are on right side by default)

[ibjsb4]

Open dconf-editor, search for "metacity" and among the settings related to metacity you can find a variable called "button-layout"

That is another point. Metacity button layout can still be found in gconf editor.

metacity.png

However the Unity desktop depends on compiz which can also be used as a DM for the classic desktop. I use metacity, but if your comfortable with compiz, you have the option

[jukingeo]

Hello All,

However the Unity desktop depends on compiz which can also be used as a DM for the classic desktop. I use metacity, but if your comfortable with compiz, you have the option

Usually I never bothered with compiz, caused problems on a past machine in fact. I never heard of metacity.

XFCE is a good intuitive DE but you might also try Cinnamon DE (HERE) which I have found to be very user friendly and more like the older style of Ubuntu and also XP
It has most of the features you are after and is highly configurable (for example you can have the task bar at top, bottom or both and can adjust the width of it also window buttons are on right side by default)

THAT looks good. Heck, I even like the way that looks over my 10.04 version. So how do you add this? Does this load up into your login menu and you can choose it from there?

Hi junkingeo,

I'd suggest you to try and get used to the new interface, is not that bad after using it for a few hours and I personally find it better than the old one. To answer your questions

I had a good laugh with my wife today as I will explain as I go. I showed her a few things with 12.04 using the 'fallback' DE as recommended by ibjsb4 below. Since now I could find my way around even though 12.04 is still not to my liking, I explained a few things to my wife. With the standard 12.04 installation (differing from mine in that I have Ubuntu Studio and the included apps are different), she has a full office suite and email already loaded up. Since she spends most of her time on the internet, I explained that there is less of a chance of corrupting her Windows OS if she doesn't use that OS for doing on-line work and that she strictly use Ubuntu for all on-line work. Her favorite application is Google Chrome and I set that up for her.

After a few hours of using Ubuntu, she comes back to me and says that perhaps she wants to have the machine boot into Ubuntu as a default now! LOL! She did mention that perhaps since she is new to Ubuntu, the changes in 12.04 are not apparent to her as they are to me. So in the end it might seem that Ubuntu is here to stay for my wife as well. She just came in the room and I showed her the Cinnamon desktop and she likes. So hopefully I can put that on my system (and hers) without messing things up.

- Moving the window buttons
Open dconf-editor, search for "metacity" and among the settings related to metacity you can find a variable called "button-layout", it should have the value "close,minimize,maximize:" and you should change it into ":close,minimize,maximize" that is move the colon at the beginning of the string, changing the order of the elements listed in the string changes the order of the corresponding buttons in the window titlebar

It was not only the order, but also the location. I preferred it to be on the right side as it is in Windows.

- Installing xfce or kde interfaces
In order to get xfce or kde guis you should install the packages xubuntu-desktop and kubuntu-desktop respectively, after installing either of them you should be able to select the gui you want to use at the login window. These packages have many dependencies, if you've installed you system recentely maybe it's better to reinstall it using a different ubuntu flavor (xubuntu or kubuntu) but I imagine it's useful to try them first
Hope it helps!

Actually, seeing that Cinnamon desktop I would like to go that route. Now I am using Ubuntu Studio 10.04 so I hope I can use Cinnamon with that too.

Thank You all,

Geo

[SuperFreak]

Not sure if this will work with 10.04 but to install Cinnamon on 12.04 or later follow these steps. Yes you will be able to select you DE from the login screen and you could install XFCE also and make that available. Good Luck!


1. Open a terminal window.

2. Type in the following commands then hit Enter after each.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cinnamon


EDIT: Don't recommend installing on 10.04 see here

[SuperFreak]

By the way I would suggest that you install the latest LTS (12.04.2) because 10.04 is no longer supported (you won't receive updates or security patches) unless you are on the server edition