Does the upgrade replace Gnome with Unity?

[Tank Jr]

Hi all,
I am running Maverick Meerkat now, and will think about upgrading to Natty next week. I have a question--I run GNOME as the environment now, and if I do upgrade, will Natty replace it with UNITY?
Thanks in advance.

[KegHead]

Hi!

My experience is that you'll get Unity.

You can change to "classic" as I have.

system...admin...login

Change default to classic and restart.

KegHead

[coffeecat]

Unity is simply a compiz plugin running in gnome so, no, gnome won't be replaced but it will be upgraded to the 2.32 version. As KegHead points out, you can choose "classic" (which is classic gnome) or "Ubuntu" (which is Unity) at login. You have to enter your account name first and then the choice appears at the bottom of the screen before you enter your password.

You may find that the global menu is enabled by default in the classic gnome desktop. (Global menu is where focussed application menus appear in the upper panel Mac-style rather than in the Window bar.) If you don't like the global menu, simply right-click on it and "remove from panel". In classic gnome, the global menu is simply a panel applet.

[KegHead]

Hi!

See my post #2.

It's been around since I started testing Alpha1.

KegHead

[KegHead]

Hi!

I've heard that too.

I'm reserving Xubuntu as my backup distro.

KegHead

[vanadium]

It is certain that the "classic" option must disappear once Ubuntu is switching to Gnome 3 as it will not be further maintained, and is not compatible with Gnome 3.

As for now, you can indeed easily switch back to the classical gnome. However indeed, the upgrade will change your default session to Unity.

[KegHead]

Hi!

There are a lot of very smart folks out there! (not me)

Who will figure out a way to keep classic. ( I hope)

KegHead

[coffeecat]

Hmm... I didn't get the option to choose Classic a few weeks ago when I upgraded to Natty :P did they just add this option?

Nope. Like KegHead I've seen the choice between Unity and classic gnome since about alpha1. The names have changed a bit, though.


Well I'm on IRC an quite a few people have indicated that there are already plans to remove the Classic option from Natty in future releases.

Since future releases won't be Natty, I'm not sure whether that's a yes or a no! :p As others have said, 11.10 will be based on gnome 3 which won't have the traditional gnome panel. That's a gnome decision - nothing to do with Ubuntu or Canonical. What the Ubuntu people will provide as an alternative to Unity in 11.10 remains to be seen. Since the developer summit for 11.10 won't happen until May 12th, any speculation about what we may or may not see in 11.10 is going to be just that - speculation.

My guess is that once the fuss has died down and both Unity and gnome-shell have matured a little, there will be only a few mourning the demise of the traditional gnome panel desktop. :)