Missing Unity Desktop, Though Apparently It's Enabled At Login; How Do I Fix This?

[OzzyFrank]

Hi. I just upgraded to 11.04, and while I originally Googled to see if I could keep my "classic" Gnome desktop, I actually wouldn't mind having a look at the new way of doing things.

Now, I am fully aware how to change from "Ubuntu" (meaning Unity) to the "Classic" modes at the login screen, as I already looked that up to help others who upgraded before me. In those cases, they were still set to log in to the Classic desktop, so had to manually change to the Unity option. However, mine was already set to "Ubuntu", but because of nVidia drivers I needed to reinstall, was told I didn't have the hardware to run Unity, so I should login again and choose Classic. It continued to what I thought was the old desktop, and after reinstalling the drivers and rebooting, I noticed it was actually set to "Ubuntu", not the Classic mode.

So how do I enable Unity when apparently I am in a desktop running it? Any info on this, and how to get Emerald themes happening again (when it is apparently already enabled as the window decorator), would be greatly appreciated. Cheers

[Krytarik]

Are you having the usual Gnome Panels in the session you are getting?
Are you still getting the mentioned error message?

Run this to check if your current video hardware/driver setup is able to run Unity, and what video driver is running:

/usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p

For further info, please see this troubleshooting guide:
http://ubuntu4beginners.blogspot.com...-in-unity.html

The current Emerald package in the official repos of Natty doesn't work with the current version of Compiz.
But you could try to compile it yourself:
http://abz89.wordpress.com/2011/05/0...-ubuntu-11-04/

Greetings.

[OzzyFrank]

That command just returns No such file or directory because that path doesn't exist on my machine.

All my Gnome panels are as before (customised). I never received that message again, but then I immediately installed the required nVidia drivers.

Also, desktop effects work, BUT I have to use the Compiz Icon to reload the window manager to get it to work. Emerald isn't happening, but I can change the GTK+/Metacity border via Appearance.

[OzzyFrank]

$ unity --reset
The program 'unity' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install unity

Could this be a factor?? I assume it's not talking about some other "unity" command/program... but I figured the Unity interface was installed with 11.04 whether one wanted it or not. And since I got that message about my hardware and Unity, I would assume it is on my system. But I thought I better share that...

[Krytarik]

I assume it's not talking about some other "unity" command/program...

Indeed, it is!

To install it and to make sure every other packages listed as dependencies of "ubuntu-desktop" are/will be installed as well, run:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

[wildmanne39]

$ unity --reset
The program 'unity' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install unity

Could this be a factor?? I assume it's not talking about some other "unity" command/program... but I figured the Unity interface was installed with 11.04 whether one wanted it or not. And since I got that message about my hardware and Unity, I would assume it is on my system. But I thought I better share that...

Hi, yes that is the problem, run that command.

[wildmanne39]

$ unity --reset
The program 'unity' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install unity

Could this be a factor?? I assume it's not talking about some other "unity" command/program... but I figured the Unity interface was installed with 11.04 whether one wanted it or not. And since I got that message about my hardware and Unity, I would assume it is on my system. But I thought I better share that...

Hi, I just noticed that I was not clear the command is sudo apt-get install unity.

[OzzyFrank]

OK, I really should have just opened Synaptic and had a look myself, but with all the hoo-hah about Unity, it NOT being installed along with 11.04 kind of took me by surprise... especially since I got that message about Unity not being able to run (that sort of implies to me it is installed, but obviously I was wrong).

So yeah, once I saw it wasn't installed, I just marked it (and dependencies) for installation while I was there. And now I know why I couldn't find Ubuntu Unity Plugin in the Compiz settings manager. Once I enabled that, and resolved some plugin conflicts, it was up and running without needing to log out or reboot.

And I didn't install "ubuntu-desktop" since I always break the hell out of it (meaning some packages I've uninstalled, and others conflict with that metapackage).

For any who follow, just run sudo apt-get install unity in a terminal and it will install all dependent packages automatically, then enable the Unity plugin under "Desktop" in CompizConfig Settings Manager (sudo apt-get install ccsm if you don't have it).

[OzzyFrank]

While I am here, and out of curiosity, how come some people seem to have unity_support_test on their systems, while others don't?

[wildmanne39]

While I am here, and out of curiosity, how come some people seem to have unity_support_test on their systems, while others don't?

Hi, probably because people only use it after unity does not work,also if you want compiz you need to log out and hit your user name and go to the bottom of the screen and click ubuntu classic and you can enable effects, I am running the cube and full effects in classic mode no problem at all, if you try in regular unity you will break it because the do not play well together.