Natty Unity

So I’ve been doing some ISO testing of the Natty Alpha 1 release and have had one or two problems [see previous post iso Testing Natty ] but my main problem with it has been the decision to replace the default Gnome desktop with Unity. Unity is a 3D replacement for the 2D Gnome desktop which Gnome are about to replace anyway with Gnome Shell. Ubuntu seem to have decided Gnome Shell is not the direction they want to go so are replacing the desktop with their own. Unity brings the notebook and desktop versions of Ubuntu together with only minor differences which will be detected and applied during install. The standard approach will therefore be a notebook type display on both desktop and notebook. The main difference will be the loss of the bottom panel, the replacement of the top panel with a more interactive menu and a Mac style icon dock down the left hand side.

When you install the Ubuntu default now you will need a 3D enabled graphics card to run Unity or you will be presented with a pop up message currently;

Information:
Sorry you don’t have 3D support, install it for
your graphic hardware to get Unity or please
reboot and select “Classic session” at startup.

Not a very helpful message in my opinion, basically you can go into [System], [Administration], [Login Screen] and change [Ubuntu desktop Edition] to [Ubuntu Classic Desktop] then log out and back in again to 2D Classic Mode but this is not obvious from the message. The other option would be to add the 3D driver [if your card supports 3D] and log out and back in again for Unity to display, Nvidia owners beware! The message is particularly unhelpful if you are running a Live CD version or USB stick with persistence not enabled because you will not be able to install the driver as a restart will wipe the changes, noobs will be confused.

Personally I don’t like Unity, it’s more Mac like styling, I don’t have 3D effects turned on and don’t want them, the dock on the left is unnecessary clutter but if I wanted one there are plenty of docks available without this being the default. We are told we can use the Classic 2D Gnome desktop if we don’t like Unity but that this will eventually disappear when Gnome Shell arrives and Gnome 2 is depreciated. My thoughts for Gnome Shell are much the same I just don’t want to go there so the hunt starts for an alternative. I’ve already tested Lubuntu with it’s LXDE desktop and although I like the styling it’s still a bit basic. So for now Xubuntu with it’s Xfce desktop is becoming my test o/s. I’m currently running Natty Xubuntu testing and loving it.

ISO Testing Natty

ISO Testing Natty Alpha 1

Testing PC details: hardware

Downloaded the testing iso from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/20101130.1/ using zsync

first install zsync

$ sudo apt-get install zsync

then I created a folder called iso-testing and copied my last Meerkat iso into it then created a script called iso-testing.sh as follows

#!/bin/sh
## created by Martin Cooper ##
##
echo “open iso testing folder:…”
cd ~/iso-testing
echo
echo “Now check local iso with current iso and update if out of date…”
echo
## Alpa 1 iso location ##
zsync -i *.iso http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/20101130.1/natty-desktop-i386.iso.zsync
echo “ok all done now..”

The -i *.iso makes zsync check any iso image in the folder to see if it is an up to date version of the version of ubuntu we have named in the download URL, in this case natty-desktop-i386.iso and if not use it as a base only downloading the files that have changed.

Once that was done and the iso was burned to a DVD [the current Alpha1 iso is too big to fit a CD] I booted it up in the test pc.

The iso booted ok but to a Live desktop with wallpaper, an examples folder and an install link but no gnome panels top and bottom. The graphics card I have will need a restricted driver adding before it [maybe] supports the new Unity desktop and there does not seem to be a fall-back option for unsupported graphics cards to give users the option to update the rivers yet. So for me the test was a fail!

I then decided to complete another of the Tests in the ISO Testing Tracker http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/, the free software only install. I knew I would still have no Desktop but I wanted Natty on the testing PC and wanted the opportunity to continue testing up to Alpha2. The install was to the 1st of the 2 Hard Drives on the PC, the 2nd currently has the LinuxMint Debian rolling release on it.

The result was the same no Desktop panels, just the revolting purple wallpaper. I could however open a Terminal using Ctrl+Alt+T and confirm that there was no non free software installed on the PC using the command line tests given in the testing script.

Verify that neither the restricted nor multiverse archives have been enabled:

$ grep “restricted\|multiverse” /etc/apt/sources.list | grep -v “^#”

should return nothing

Verify that the linux-restricted-modules package has not been installed:

$ dpkg -l linux-restricted-* | grep -vE “^[a-z]n”

should return no packages

so that works but no usable desktop!

To fix this I found this post http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=10184462&postcount=10 by lidex

Opened a Terminal using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+T, then entered

$ gconf-editor

and once the gconf editor opened navigated to desktop/gnome/session/required_components/panel and changed “” to gnome-panel then rebooted.

The second major problem was that the install of Natty has wiped the LinuxMint boot options from Grub so to fix this I followed this http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1581099 thread by drs305 from 3. as I could get into Ubuntu and had a working Internet connection.

3. Purge Grub 2 packages. The next command will remove grub, grub-pc (Grub 2) and grub-common.

* Here is what you will do:

* Press ENTER to continue.

* Read the warning during the install about removing the bootloader. TAB to highlight “” and press ENTER.

* If you are sure you have never had Grub legacy on the current installation you may omit “grub” from the next command (apt-get purge grub-pc grub-common).

Code:

$ sudo apt-get purge grub grub-pc grub-common

4. Reinstall the grub packages. Here is what will happen:

* You will be given the opportunity to add extra kernel options to the kernel line. If you don’t know, you probably don’t need them ; TAB to highlight “” and press ENTER.
* Read the installation notes. TAB to “” to continue.
* When presented with the device option, use the UP/DN keys to select the correct drive (sdX).

Make sure the installation drive [*] /dev/sdX has an asterisk next to it ( example: [*] /dev/sda ). If it doesn’t, highlight it and press the SPACE bar to select it.
Do not select a partition ( example: [ ] /dev/sda5 , etc).

* TAB to “” and press ENTER. When it has finishing the installation, you should have Grub 2 installed.

Code:

$ sudo apt-get install grub-common grub-pc

5. Update the Grub 2 files . This command shouldn’t be necessary, but it won’t hurt to update Grub once more before exiting.
Code:

$ sudo update-grub

and rebooted to test, all is right with grub2 again.

Testing Alpha [Edit: ]

Just added the restricted nVidia driver [tried both v173 & 96] and both somehow removed the Gnome panels again, with the fix above not helping as the gnome-panel option is still in place. When I revert back to no restricted driver the panels return.