You can crash your Unity desktop on Ubuntu 11.04 when trying to enable desktop cube with Compiz. When this happens, the items on your desktop may become unresponsive. Hopefully, you can still log out of your user so you can change the login session to safe mode. If you cannot even do that, then try ctrl+alt+2 so you can be at a console prompt. Here you can login as a user and then do startx command to boot up the graphical login screen so you can change to safe mode session. If all is failed, try do ctrl+alt+delete to restart your computer, and then get yourself into a safe mode session.

The whole point is to be inside a safe mode session! Within safe mode session, fire up a terminal. Inside a terminal, you can execute this command [unity --replace]. There are two short dashes before the replace parameter. Done? At this point you may see errors inside your terminal, these can be ignored. Just restart Ubuntu, and you will see a working desktop again.

Sometimes, even the changes you have altered for your desktop through the use of Compiz may retain, but isn’t this a good news? It certainly is, because you have got your Unity desktop to work again,and on the top of that happiness you now also acquiring the changes you made earlier to your Unity through Compiz. Have fun making your Unity desktop looks awesome!

Breaking from the tradition, instead of sticking to Ubuntu classic theme, the Ubuntu 11.04 official stable release has a new graphical user interface which is Unity.  Many hardcore Ubuntu users are rather upset by the change from classic look of Ubuntu’s previous versions, because they don’t think Unity is pretty or better than the classic theme.  One user on YouTube thinks Unity’s left sidebar is too big which is a big waste of screen real estate.  Another user on YouTube thinks Unity is just plain ugly.

For me personally, I think Unity is fresh and different.  Sometimes, it’s too boring to use the same old theme even though the same old theme is great.  Also, Unity behaves rather very different than the classic theme.  Some behaviors are just plain silly and cumbersome, but some behaviors are rather surprisingly awesome.  For an example, Unity’s left sidebar is made to half look like Mac’s dock and Windows 7 taskbar.  Unity is still very new to me, and perhaps this is why it’s attractive to me.

Nonetheless, arts are things of beauty in the eyes of beholders, and so who am I to say other people’s scorns for Unity are wrong.  But, I do think it’s so wrong for them to hate Ubuntu altogether just because of Unity.  Don’t they know they can always revert back to classic theme through changing their login session with a preferable GUI?

Oh, one last thing, for people who think Ubuntu has destroyed their own user base, I beg a different.  Ubuntu is free, and so it probably is the easiest Linux distribution to install and use in terms of installing the distribution itself and software/packages and configuration of software.  Also, even with Unity as a scornful object for some people, I predict that those same people will return to Ubuntu, because it one of those Linux distributions that is very complete in term of recognizing drivers — it means besides of being addictive and well known Linux distribution among all, it ‘s also a more complete free OS in the world, I think.

I’ve always tested Fedora out, but I’ve often found myself reverting back to Ubuntu.  I guess I’m one of those operating system fanatics, because I use almost every operating system out there.  I’ve to say free OS such as Ubuntu is one of those rarest/highest quality stuffs in the world.  Those others rarest/highest quality stuffs in the world are Apache and PHP and WordPress and dozen other best free (i.e., open source) software.

Like I say, if Ubuntu’s 11.04 with Unity isn’t a welcoming release to everyone, and if Ubuntu’s developers feel the same as time progresses, they can always be even more innovative and better at bringing out a more beautiful theme/GUI for the next version of Ubuntu.  I think some people need to chill out, because Ubuntu is free after all!  Mac and Windows aren’t!  And, it does take a lot of experimentation on just about anything to perfect that something.  It means to play piano like an expert or a world greatest pianist, it requires one to experiment and fail and retry and recreate oneself to achieve such a lofty goal.  The same thing goes with developing an OS or software.  Enough say, you can check out the videos on Unity after the break!