Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472, and today, I am going to change the interface on my Ubuntu Machine, Derpy Chips, from Unity to… something else. Let’s get started.
From my last post, I broke from my usual methodology and gave a nano update after my final question. Unity had decided to zoom in on its interface again, and I am not a fan. Besides, having grown up on Windows, Unity wasn’t doing it for me. The tower I set up as a MineCraft server has the MATE interface and my father’s Christmas present has Cinnamon. I’ve been able to work with those. Their OS’s came with those environments. So, this week, I’m going to learn a little more about what’s available in terms of GUI’s (Graphical User Interfaces) for Ubuntu and see about altering mine.
Wikipedia is a good place to start. I won’t get any final answers there, but I’ve already done some preliminary research. Warning: Terminology Overload Incoming. I’ll try to use searchable Wikipedia page titles for terminology, but I can’t list everything. I started at Unity, read a bit about it, and browsed past GNOME, the interface Ubuntu is looking to change to as a default, to Desktop Environment and Graphical User Interface and Shell. I need to do my self-assigned reading on my terminology so I’m not misinforming you later.
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Shell: This is typically a user interface designed as a go between the operating system and the user.
GUI: Graphical based shell.
Desktop environment: computer GUI modeled after a real desk, presenting information as if on digital paper or windows.
After looking through a few options, I am opting to try installing the Cinnamon Desktop environment on Derpy Chips. The reason is that I intend to later update to the latest LTS version coming out at the end of the month and they will have GNOME 3 as the new default environment. I don’t believe it is actually a desktop environment, and if I don’t like it, I can just go back to Cinnamon or whatever I go with now.
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I installed Cinnamon, and it was actually almost painless. I did a quick search and fount a blog LINK. The desktop came back at a civilized resolution with respect to the different interfaces. I did forget to follow the final instruction and switch between the installed environments, but it wasn’t too hard to finish.
When I got in, it was pretty basic. It didn’t remember my lefty mouse settings, and there was no default background image. I’m not sure I like the windows, but I still need to play around with the appearance settings. At least it remembered my installed programs. I’ll spend some time moving in and possibly give a report. Just now, as I was typing the last sentence, the basic screen saver activated, a military time clock, and as I was typing this one, it started flitting about the screen. I can’t say I like that one. Just another thing to play around with I guess.
Final Question: This week I solved a problem by going for a completely different solution. Have you ever done likewise?