Troubleshooting the new Ubuntu Gnome release

Unity has divided Ubuntu users into two camps: believers and unbelievers. The controversial Unity desktop, which has been the default option in the past few Ubuntu releases, has caused much disturbance in the ranks of veteran users. And, Canonical's threatened introduction of the Mir display server to the Kubuntu project has caused a whole new round of uncertainty (see the "Kubuntu and Mir" box).

In the long run, the only users who are universally accepting of Unity and its Unity Next successor will be the beginners, including converters from Windows, and especially the Mac world, because Unity has the basic look and feel of Mac OS X. Sharp tongues claim that many Windows converts opt for Ubuntu because it's hard for them to deal with "real Linux."

Ubuntu users who can't deal with the Unity desktop have several options. You could always turn to an official Ubuntu spin-off with an alternative desktop, such as Lubuntu, Xubuntu, or Kubuntu. Other spinoff distros, such as Linux Mint, have also been gaining popularity. You could also install an alternative desktop manually through the package manager after your system is already up and running. The Ubuntu community, however, has finally bowed to popular sentiment and approved a more seamless solution for the Gnome faithful. Since its "Raring Ringtail" release, Ubuntu Gnome [1] has offered an official Ubuntu version with a Gnome desktop. If you're interested in trying out Ubuntu Gnome, the fastest way to download it is through Canonical's image server [2].

The installation is essentially indistinguishable from any other Ubuntu. Unfortunately, the graphics stack has some issues and operation on a virtual machine is still risky.

If you feel like experimenting with Ubuntu Gnome, the tips in this article will help you get started.

Stack Issues

The problem with the graphics stack is largely caused by an llvmpipe-based redirect mode that allows the use of Unity 3D or Gnome 3.8 on systems that don't have an OpenGL driver. (Ubuntu uses the llvmpipe to calculate the graphics by the CPU rather than the GPU, which sometimes leads to intolerable sluggishness.) The use of llvmpipe might be a workable solution for native applications, yet it nudges the limits on a virtual machine. You can find out whether the Gallium llvmpipe driver is being used by checking the system settings under Information | Graphics (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Llvmpipe is the source of the slow performance for virtual systems. Currently, the only alternative is converting to KDE, Mate, LXDE, or XFCE.

In the Virtual Machine

Regardless of the llvmpipe problem, the first order of business when operating Ubuntu Gnome under VirtualBox is installing the VirtualBox Guest Additions drivers. These drivers provide at least a reasonable resolution with acceptable color depth and solve the "runaway pointer" problem.

During testing, the installation failed from Software Center. It didn't run properly in the virtual machine, and it aborted the startup attempt with an error stating that a problem with the system application was found. The application didn't fully crash, but I could not add sources or use the search function. To install the VirtualBox Guest Additions drivers, you can either add the downloaded extension package in File | Preferences | Extensions (Figure 2) or use the command line and install the VirtualBox drivers directly from the Ubuntu repository of the guest system (Figure 3), as follows:

Figure 2: Adding the extension package in VirtualBox. The version numbers for VirtualBox and the Extension Pack must be identical.

Figure 3: The VirtualBox Guest Additions drivers are also found in the Ubuntu repository.

$ sudo apt-get install virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-dkms

It is a good idea to install the Synaptic Gtk package manager with apt-get install synaptic and integrate the first upgrade with apt-get upgrade . The default kernel is at a fairly current status with version 3.8.0-19.

This isn't true for the Gnome Shell, however, in that it is still at version 3.6 (Figure 4), even though Gnome 3.8 has been out since the end of March. The reason could be that Gnome 3.6 still includes the fallback mode, which the developers no longer want to maintain and completely removed in Gnome 3.8 (see the box titled "Fallback Mode.")

Figure 4: Ubuntu Gnome is still based on version 3.6 of the Gnome shell.