Ubuntu – Ubuntu 12.10 shows no launcher or menu

launcher

I have 'upgraded' to Ubuntu 12.10 from a previous nice version that always worked. I have installed from a CD downloaded from this site. I start the PC (HP Pavillion zv5200) and arrive at a signon screen which has my username and "Guest". This screen shows the menu at the top with power, time, calendar, etc. So I enter my password and I am taken to a screen which only shows a wallpaper, nothing else. If I move the mouse and 'push' against the left limit I do not get a launcher app. Nothing. The only thing that works is opening a terminal (ctrl+alt+F1). I have tried several of the hot-key combinations I've read about on the site but none do anything, nothing happens. Can anyone help? Thanks very much!

Best Answer

I had the same problem but none of the above worked for me. Uninstalling compizconfig-settings-manager also didn't work.

In the end I found the answer here, as I was seeing the same 'Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0' errors in a terminal when trying to start unity. I realised I was using a proprietary ATI display driver before I upgraded from 12.04 to 12.10. I issued the commands below in a terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:makson96/fglrx 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install fglrx-legacy

and then rebooted my PC. Unity then reappeared when I logged in.

There's an explanation here of why the upgrade fails in the first place. I was using an AMD Mobility Radeon HD 3650 graphics card (ATI RV635). Use:

lspci | grep VGA

to find out what graphics card you are using.

Related Question