Ubuntu – make Ubuntu 11.10’s desktop look like 11.04’s Ubuntu Classic

gnomeubuntu 11.10ubuntu-unity

I updated to 11.10 today and Unity has absolutely driven me nuts. Is there a way to bring 11.04's Classic Desktop back to 11.10? I tried KDE and I don't find it similar enough to be happy.

I tried installing gnome-session-fallback and selected "classic" at login, but it is missing many things, including the power button, the entire System menu, and the old workspace layout. Essentially, I want:

  • The launcher gone.
  • The top pane with its associated menus back.
  • The taskbar back, with its "foursquare" workspaces layout back.

I have seen some solutions that have you uninstall ~10 unity-related packages — but does that bring back the old-style desktop environment or does it simply remove Unity?

Bonus points to anyone who can tell me why Unity was conceived. Ugh.

For the sake of remaining updated, I'm not interested in reinstalling 11.04. I would rather switch distros or boot into Win7 than keep my OS out of date, especially since 11.04 isn't LTS. But that's a different topic altogether.

Best Answer

Based on ChrisiPK's suggestion to use Xfce, here are the detailed steps I took to rescue Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot from Unity.

For the looks:

  1. Install Xubuntu-Desktop (for Xfce) by using sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop (If you want to undo this later, use this resource to get rid of the xubuntu packages).
  2. Logout and using the settings "gear" icon, select Xfce session.
  3. Upon logging in, you'll notice we're still a little ways away from an "Ubuntu Classic" appearance.
  4. Start by making the lower panel full-width: Right click it and select Panel > Panel Preferences. On the display Tab, set the Size to something around 29, and the length to 100%.
  5. I have the two panels organized as follows:

Panel 1 (top): Applications Menu - Places - Launcher (FireFox) - Separator (Set to Expand) - Notification Area - Clock - Session Menu - Action Buttons

--

Panel 2 (Bottom): Show Desktop - Window Buttons - Separator (Set to Expand) - Workspace Switcher

To remove the bubbles around desktop icons in Xfce

Edit (or create if it doesn't exist) ~/.gtkrc-2.0 -- Add to the file:

style "xfdesktop-icon-view" {
    XfdesktopIconView::label-alpha = 0

    base[NORMAL] = "#000000"
    base[SELECTED] = "#CFD784"
    base[ACTIVE] = "#FFE7BA"

    fg[NORMAL] = "#ffffff"
    fg[SELECTED] = "#ffffff"
    fg[ACTIVE] = "#ffffff"
}
widget_class "*XfdesktopIconView*" style "xfdesktop-icon-view"

The colors are hex, so adjust them according to the colors you would like to use (in fact, I personally only included fg[NORMAL] and commented out the rest (by using a # on each line).

For some functionality:

Now, I noticed several things were still missing, like the "Aero Snap" feature for windows, and the ability to arrange windows with Ctrl+Alt+numpad keys, and some other hotkeys were now broken (like Super+D (aka Windows key + D) to show desktop). To bring some of this back, I had to add Compiz back into the mix.

  1. Under the Applications Menu > Settings > Settings Manager, go to Session and Startup. Under Application Autostart, add compiz --replace Log out and back in.
  2. Install CompizConfig Settings Manager (CCSM): sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager.
  3. Under Settings > CompizConfig Settings Manager, go to Key Bindings. Set Show Desktop to use Super+D to bring the show Desktop hotkey back.

For particular programs

NetBeans

You'll notice NetBeans looks ugly in Xfce (compared to Unity/Ubuntu). To fix that, add --laf com.sun.java.swing.plaf.gtk.GTKLookAndFeel to any and all launchers for NetBeans. For some reason, NetBeans on Unity loads the GTK Look and Feel, whereas under Xfce it loads a "Metal" Look and feel. Solution found here.

Last Words

I'm still hoping there is a more elegant way, and am still leaving this question open. Furthermore, my solution still has its oddities, and I am sure I am missing some features/functions -- I will try to add those as I come across them. Most notable at this point, is that the workspace preview icons are scaled incorrectly once you introduce Compiz to Xfce.

So instead of saving Ubuntu from Unity, this is actually going with Xubuntu instead, which means things like Firetray for Thunderbird have stopped working.

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