Ubuntu Unity

A couple of months ago I ran the usual

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

on my Ubuntu box and when I logged back in, there was no graphical user interface. Nothing. Not even a Ctrl-Alt-T into a terminal.

An internet search suggested it was a Compiz issue but nothing seemed to work. Until now! I thank Jonayad Rahman on the Ask Ubuntu forums for this fix:

Press Ctrl-Alt-F2 to call up a command-line. Log in with your usual credentials. You can then fix the compiz problem by removing the local config files:

sudo rm -fr ~/.cache/compizconfig-1
sudo rm -fr ~/.compiz

Then try this if your session still does not load:

sudo rm -fr ~/.Xauthority
sudo rm -fr ~/.config/autostart

Reinstall compiz:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop unity compizconfig-settings-manager upstart

Reboot the machine and you should be able to log into Unity. Finally clear and restart the Unity Desktop by opening a terminal and typing:

sudo dconf reset -f /org/compiz/
setsid unity

So I have Unity back. More or less. I don’t seem to be able to right-click on the desktop and get a menu, and my wallpaper choices don’t seem to get saved, but it’s good to have some windows visible.

One thing I’ve discovered in the meantime is that I actually prefer the Gnome desktop!

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