Ubuntu 11.10 - Unity, grrrr...

candtalan

fwor wrote: »

I can't figure out how to turn it off! Prior to the upgrade, there was the classic on/off button at the right hand end of the top panel bar

fwiw I upgraded to Ubuntu 11.10 from Ubuntu 11.10 beta and as before the upgrade I have a button at top right as expected. it looks slightly star shape because it now included some tools settings, (a bit like google).

Have you tried a clean install or a live CD?

Also simply pressing the machine off button briefly is usually going to offer the shutdown menu too.

fwor

candtalan wrote: »

Have you tried a clean install or a live CD?

Neither yet, but I've no doubt both will work Ok.

candtalan wrote: »

Also simply pressing the machine off button briefly is usually going to offer the shutdown menu too.

Before the dist-upgrade that's what it would do, but now that just puts it into Standby!

Never mind, some time soon I'll get round to transferring my data off it and doing a clean install. Thanks for the suggestions though.

Anthonis

Great somebody uses new ubuntu
Do you like it at all? How is the feeling in Unity?
Waiting for opensuse 12.1 I hope it will be more better/stable than 11.4...

candtalan

Anthonis wrote: »

Great somebody uses new ubuntu
Do you like it at all? How is the feeling in Unity?
Waiting for opensuse 12.1 I hope it will be more better/stable than 11.4...

Unity is geared towards (new) novice users, and at first, as a sort of power user, I found things not only different but a bit frustrating. It looks as if 11.10 has some bugs sorted out, and is getting better reports. I have not had time to use it much but I started with 11.10 alpha and then beta versions and upgraded to the full release. I was impressed at how it all went. Particularly because 11.04 had real trouble with the graphics on my 'test' PC. But even the pre release 11.10 stuff worked fine. I do like Unity now. I still have stuff to find out as a (power) user though. I will begin to use it on my main machine in 12.04, and that is the time I will roll it out to all my novice friends who, like me, are currently using LTS 10.04.3 After the initial explanations, I think it will make life simpler. I see that 12.04 LTS desktop, unusually, will be now be updated for a full 5 years, not the usual LTS 3 years.
I am not sorry to avoid the new Gnome, which I would have had no choice about, so I think the Canonical decision for Unity, a courageous decision, is quite neat.

tweeter

tweeter wrote: »

I've also noticed that in 11.10 you can only open a browser in one workspace no matter how many workspaces you have, whereas in 10.10 you can open the same browser in as many workspaces as you like. I know you can open tabs, but having many browsers open at the same time and on different web pages as well as tabs, helps me because of eyesight problems.

Hi peeps,

The link below shows how you can achieve multiple instances of the same programme in different workspaces which isn't possible as it stands, but I find it too cumbersome to adopt this practice at the moment, so I'll wait until its sorted out before going over to Unity from 10.10.

Thanks for everyones contribution.


http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/06/l...her-workspace/

candtalan

tweeter wrote: »

..... shows how you can achieve multiple instances of the same programme in different workspaces which isn't possible as it stands, but I find it too cumbersome to adopt this practice at the moment, so I'll wait until its sorted out before going over to Unity from 10.10

All you have to do is use mouse middle click (not left click) on the launcher icon, and a new (instance of your) program starts. This can be in a new workspace or it can be in the existing workspace.
Not cumbersome :-)

Enjoy

fwor

candtalan wrote: »

All you have to do is use mouse middle click (not left click) on the launcher icon, and a new (instance of your) program starts.

But it only works for simple applications - i.e. ones that don't have a complex set of data sitting behind them.

It works fine with something like the calculator app, but if you try it with Thunderbird, it doesn't work, nor (from a very brief test) does Evolution.

Why? In all probability because the developers of the application don't want you to have multiple instances of Thunderbird accessing the same user profile at once. They don't want to have to deal with the problems that arise if - for example - you delete an email in one instance and at the same time move it to a folder in another.

In both cases, it's not the OS that is stopping it from happening - you can see that the application starts, but as soon as it checks for other instances and finds one, it switches you back to the existing instance and shuts itself down.

[Edit: BTW, this has nothing to do with Unity. I get exactly the same behaviour with Gnome Classic and LXDE desktops.]

tweeter

candtalan wrote: »

All you have to do is use mouse middle click (not left click) on the launcher icon, and a new (instance of your) program starts. This can be in a new workspace or it can be in the existing workspace.
Not cumbersome :-)

Enjoy

Thanks for your reply.

I tried earlier the middle button solution and it doesn't work on my mouse, and some of the peeps on the Ubuntu forums have had the same experience.

The complexity involved in the video I posted to get to what is a simple operation in 10.10, to allow one to use different instances of browsers and emailer programmes like Evolution, with emails/contacts/calendar/memos/tasks etc opened in different workspaces at the same time, might be a bit awkward to someone new to linux, that is if they are aware of it.

Perhaps I should buy another mouse...