Which ubuntu let's me access menus without mouse?

[xadder]

Hi!

I really liked the old gnome-2 Application menus, which Unity/gnome-3 dropped but which I see I can also get with Lubuntu, classic gnome or cinnamon. I haven't found a way to get to the menus without the mouse though. I used to be able to use alt-key and arrow-keys, and could quickly navigate around.

I don't have time to work thorough all the variantys of ubuntu (and others) and RTFM for all, and my attempts to google-this haven't work.

Anyone know how to get to such a system? Thanks!

[arubislander]

Don't know about the others that you've mentioned, but in cinnamon you get to the menu by pressing the SUPER (aka Windows) key, then you can navigate the menus with the cursor keys.

[lukeiamyourfather]

I like GNOME 3 because you can use the "Super" (Windows) key to bring up the applications and search them instantly by just typing the name of an application.


sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

[Rodney9]

Ratpoison is a Keyboard-only window manager, available in Synaptic.

http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/

Rodney

[xadder]

Many thanks for the replies. I'll check them out over the weekend, as the PC I am on now doesn't have a super key (I use an IBM touchpad keyboard on my normal PC; and it is pre-super). In Unity I had reconfigured another key to be super, but I remember it took some time to figure out how.

Home I have a new Thinkpad with super-key, so testing with be faster.

Ratpoisin looks interesting too, but maybe a little too plain. I'll give it a try anyway, and compare with the others:)
(googling this led me to wmi, awesome, and loads of others though. Hard to know where to stop, but it is nice with the choice.)

[Rodney9]

Window Manager Comparisons

http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20081209153125602/WindowManagers.html

[lukeiamyourfather]

Many thanks for the replies. I'll check them out over the weekend, as the PC I am on now doesn't have a super key (I use an IBM touchpad keyboard on my normal PC; and it is pre-super). In Unity I had reconfigured another key to be super, but I remember it took some time to figure out how.

Home I have a new Thinkpad with super-key, so testing with be faster.

Ratpoisin looks interesting too, but maybe a little too plain. I'll give it a try anyway, and compare with the others:)
(googling this led me to wmi, awesome, and loads of others though. Hard to know where to stop, but it is nice with the choice.)

You can change the "Super" key functionality to a different key in GNOME 3 if you like.

[xadder]

Thanks. I actually have the superkey mapped in my Unity desktop (to the 1/2 or "ss" key), so bringing up that menu isn't a problem. In fact, that is one of the few things I like in Unity. I still preferred the gnome-2 desktop (the "old" Ubuntu) though, eg for alt-tabbing between terminals, finding settings, etc. I keep hitting problems that I haven't had for years, e.g. connecting to an overhead projector and seeing an image of an Ubuntu workspace, when the 2 workspaces I use are actually used aren't shown. Not funny in the middle of a meeting. Hmm, I'll stop. I could give a long list of unexpected problems since 11.10, things that did just-work in the pre-Unity days. There are 1000s of posts with such complaints though!)

Looks like I am heading towards xfce4, but I still fancy playing with some of the other ideas mentioned above.

[sunewbie]

try synapse

It is a keyboard launcher like gnome-do.

It also searches for documents e.g. I created a doc 'my thoughts on Pinguy 11.04'

after typing something I closed it and then fired synapse (default key - <ctrl> <space> , which you can change) and it showed immediately as soon as I started typing 'my'

if it does not display relevant content, then press <down arrow> key to get more options.

It's quite handy if you know name of app or doc.

e.g type 'mouse' or 'keyboard' and hit <enter>

b.t.w, E17 which is available in repos can also be operated with keyboard.

it has everything menu. But it needs to be configured manually to get what you want.

Best is to download Ubuntu based 'Bodhi Linux 1.3'

key binding for 'everything' menu is <win> <space>, which you can change it.

Bodhi Linux also has good documentation 'doku wiki'.

[xadder]

Thanks!

I have now been running with xfce instead of unity, which seems to keep the desktop behaving as I expect, and let's me configure shortcuts pretty much as I want. I have just started to test synapse, which also seems great. Very nice combination by the look of things.

[sunewbie]

XFCE is a no-nonsense, traditional Desktop, which works the way you want.

Nice choice.