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Ubuntu – Upgrade Ubuntu 16.04 LTS to 18.04 LTS = 5 desktop environments

16.0418.04desktop-environmentsloginupgrade

I'm testing Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with Unity to 18.04 LTS upgrade. After rebooting The first thing I notice is five different desktop environments available at sign in:

Ubuntu 18.04 Five Desktops.jpg

  • I assume the first option is GNOME on Wayland???
  • The first and second options result in a movable mouse cursor in a sea of purple.
  • The third option "Ubuntu" I have no idea if it is supposed to be Wayland or Xorg. Selecting it results in a movable mouse pointer in a sea of purple.
  • The fourth option I wasn't brave enough to select due to Wayland problems I've read about.
  • The last option "Unity" works OK but not what I would call ready for prime-time.

Can anyone explain what option 1 "GNOME" and option 3 "Ubuntu" are supposed to be using for Desktop Environment (DE)?

As I'm running the test in an easily duplicated environment: Bash script to clone Ubuntu to new partition for testing 18.04 LTS upgrade, is there something I can do before conversion rather than fixing after conversion? If so I can modify the cloning script to possibly speed up conversion and one less thing to do after conversion.

I would first click the gear to select the Desktop environment and then enter my password. Then the software says "Invalid Password". I retype my password and click the gear icon again to discover my first choice has reset to the default and I have to select my first choice again. The second time I enter my password it is accepted. This happens on all options I tried except for "Unity" which accepted my password the first time.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Login problem on 18.04

I ran into a very similar issue, but even a hard reset did not allow me to log in. The last thing I had done before the issue presented itself was install the indicator-multiload package.

I was lucky, and simply logging into a console (CTRL + ALT + F2) and uninstalling the package (sudo apt remove --purge indicator-multiload) fixed the problem.

I have not dived any deeper into this issue to see why (or even whether) this package caused said issue, but I postulate that it has something to do with the package's integration with the Gnome desktop.

Maybe you can try to think what packages you might have installed recently that could have interfered with Gnome and attempt to uninstall them. If doing so works, at least you can get back into your desktop environment and troubleshoot further.

Ubuntu – Ubuntu 18.04 login loop problem with gnome; unity works fine

Had a similar issue. Try the following from the working Unity environment

  1. Using the Ubuntu Software Application install GNOME Tweaks
  2. GNOME Tweaks has a menu item named Startup Applications
  3. Remove all or only the application that is likely to be causing an issue. In my case the application was System Load Indicator
  4. Logout of the Unity environment and try to login to the default Ubuntu environment.
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