Ubuntu 11.04

[John]

I'm going to be upgrading my laptop disk to a 320 GB drive from the standard 80 it came with. (Acer Aspire 5000 - AMD Turlon 64) Before I remove the old disk containing Ubuntu 10.10 64 bit, I wanted to give the new version a spin to see if any of the tools / languages I use on a regular basis displayed update side effects. After the installation and my first boot of 11.04, it said that my hardware wasn't compatible with Unity (new spiffy UI) and Ubuntu would run in Classic mode.   The following (what I'm not seeing) is what the Unity desktop environment looks like.



So far, ScriptBasic, Wine and Gambas 3 (pre-update build) seem to work fine. I did hear some complaints from the Gambas list that building from source under 11.04 has some issues. The Gambas author hasn't upgraded yet so I'm waiting for his blessing before moving my Gambas svn build process to 11.04. I might hold off on the 320 GB update until I have more time to work with the new release awhile. The upgrade downloaded just over 900 MB and took about an hour and a half to complete the upgrade.

If you have upgraded to 11.04 (32/64 bit) and would like to comment on your experience, feel free to post a reply to this thread.

FYI You may want to check out a couple backup/restore tools I found helpful when moving/upgrading a Linux system.

Déjà Dup - Painless and brainless way to automate your home directory backup.



APTonCD - Create a backup to CD/DVD of the packages you installed via APT-GET or APTITUDE.



To save your Firefox user profile, I use a plug-in called FEBE.



And finally don't forget to backup your Evolution data (mail, settings, ...) from the File menu.


 

[AIR]

Installed it in a separate partition.

10 minutes later, nuked the partition.

I should point out that I have never been a fan of the Gnome DE, prefering XFCE for it's speed and comparative minimal bloat.

I tried both Unity, and the Classic interface, and didn't like either.

Unity would probably work a lot better on a Netbook (although in my opinion the original Netbook edition interface was both cleaner and more intuitive) or a Tablet, which is probably their end-game with the unified interface.  Classic mode just pissed me off because it's Gnome.

I ended up running the Xubuntu upgrade, which went fine.

[John]

Thanks for the feedback. I think I will take your advice and go the Xubuntu route with my upgrade of my 320GB drive.

I'm not sure what I'm missing not being able to run Unity but it seems like more of a user experience upgrade to keep up with Windows 7. Mobile is a hot item today so I don't blame them for trying to keep up with current trends. I just want a solid development environment that makes sense and easy to use.

 

[John]

You can remove Unity from your Ubuntu 11.04 install by using the
Ubuntu Software Center application under Applications. Select the
installed apps section and type Unity in the search box. Remove all
packages under this option. (only one package on my box) You may want to
remove 'mutter' via apt-get if it is install as well. You will no longer
be offered Unity updates from that point on. This should give you a
10.10 like environment under 11.04.

[jcfuller]

You can remove Unity from your Ubuntu 11.04 install by using the
Ubuntu Software Center application under Applications. Select the
installed apps section and type Unity in the search box. Remove all
packages under this option. (only one package on my box) You may want to
remove 'mutter' via apt-get if it is install as well. You will no longer
be offered Unity updates from that point on. This should give you a
10.10 like environment under 11.04.

Seems a bit harsh.
I upgraded today after playing with Unity for a couple of days in a VM.
I did not like Unity either but I should get all the 11.04 updates I need for other things?
http://www.geekgumbo.com/2011/05/04/switching-the-unity-desktop-to-the-gnome-desktop/
James

[keithunder]

I just did this now i have no desktop  at all help!

[AIR]

Which steps did you follow,  ABB's or JC's?

Are you still getting a graphical logon screen? If so, which sessions are listed?

[John]

I haven't had any issues after removing Unity via the Ubuntu Software Center. I get updates as normal, just not Unity related updates. I can't see why I would want to just disable something I have no interest in using and gives me the option to remove using the package manager.

The method I used seemed to produce the most hits (Google) when searching for a solution to not use Unity.