Gotta lose Unity, help

[bossltr]

Howdy, I've installed natty on my netbook for work, that wasn't too bad, only one terminal window at a time was limiting for multiple pings, but it worked although it seemed I was making excuses to my IT boss about Unity's limitations too often. Anyway, it is a netbook, I don't know what a older guy like myself was thinking getting this little screen. So I installed Natty on our livingroom PC so I could perhaps get a handle on how to configure Unity. Nothing worked properly on the old desktop PC. I had to upgrade the memory just to get Unity to boot. Then install compiz or some such crap which has all sorts of settings, good good, but they didn't seem to do anything. Frustration I wouldn't mind so much if some kind of modern interface was going to be possible.

Foolishly I think now that I am sitting here with a netbook that will not show the stupid launcher and won't let me open anything to fix this. I need my netbook tomorrow morning for work, I'm a rural WiFi installer.
Help! where is safe mode? where is go back? where is anything to get the launcher back on the screen, this sucks, and I am extremely disappointed with Natty and Unity. I need to lose 11.04 and go back to 10.10 but I got no CD in the netbook. Help

[howefield]

At the login screen, click on your user name and from the session menu on the bottom panel, select Ubuntu Classic, this should take you to the gnome setup you are probably used to.

Not sure why you are limited to one terminal though, you can use tabs within a single terminal or open new terminal windows.

[bossltr]

Thanks and I did that to get unity to boot after the Natty installation on the desktop failed because of low memory. unfortunately with no launcher on my netbook, I can't get to the setup screen to turn the logon menu on:(
Bottom line I am stuck with no way to enter anything
I was trying to figure out Unity by placing it on the desktop PC so I could see the screen better, maybe I would have noticed the tabs in terminal, that little screen screwed me

[howefield]

Try the keyboard combination Alt + F2 and type


unity --reset

[bossltr]

Awesome thanks

[bossltr]

Thanks again that unity --reset worked on my laptop
It gives me another chance to keep Unity
First thing I need is to add programs I need to the launcher
I see that right clicking items on the launcher gives (keep) I can not find a add to launcher. I didn't have any luck tweaking compiz

[akand074]

Thanks again that unity --reset worked on my laptop
It gives me another chance to keep Unity
First thing I need is to add programs I need to the launcher
I see that right clicking items on the launcher gives (keep) I can not find a add to launcher. I didn't have any luck tweaking compiz

Just drag and drop items to the launcher. Or when they are already open, right click on them and choose "Keep in launcher". Unity was developed in 6 months and released quickly so it does have obvious minor limitations. Just wait until 11.10 it should be much much better.

[howefield]

It gives me another chance to keep Unity

Here's some good videos if you need an overview of how to get the best from Unity...

http://theravingrick.blogspot.com/2011/04/video-demonstraton-of-few-things-i-like.html
http://blip.tv/jorge-castro/how-i-use-the-unity-dash-5016298
http://blip.tv/jorge-castro/how-i-multitask-in-unity-5015448


And this thread also.. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1742326

You probably want to stay away from compiz tweaking for the time being, as you have already found out, except if you want to configure the Unity compiz plugin, eg changing the icon size of the launcher.

[bossltr]

Just drag and drop items to the launcher. Or when they are already open, right click on them and choose "Keep in launcher".I was hoping that was the way it ought to work, alas no. It seems something is wrong with the launcher none of the settings in compiz do anything, I've been messing with it all day
Brian