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A few weeks ago the systems operator for my division at the Laboratory upgraded my workstation from 12.04 to 14.04. (I was unable to do so myself, since the upgrade manager wanted only to upgrade to 12.04, which was evidently no longer available.) Fine -- the displays looked pretty different, but I was able to get used to it and proceed with my laboratory work.

This weekend, having received a 14.04 distribution CD-ROM, I upgraded my home computer from 12.04 to 14.04. Also OK, but things look very different. For example, at the lab, I do not get the icons on my desktop, but at home I do. Also, at the lab I have an Activities button which, when pressed, displays the left-hand applications panel, but at home I have the panel on display all the time.

I am puzzled as to why there should be such differences. Thanks in advance for any enlightenment.

RRS

Answer to query: yes I did go through all upgrades, about 330 MB of downloads.

Richard Silbar
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  • The CD distribution may be from an older revision than what you have in the lab. Did you update your home system after the installation? What are the respective release revisions? You can look them up in /etc/lsb-release under the variable name DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION. – David Foerster Sep 30 '14 at 16:34
  • I the answer is not correct adding in an image from both would help. – Rinzwind Sep 30 '14 at 17:05

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It sounds like that 'at the lab' you are running Ubuntu Gnome, and at home you are running Ubuntu Unity. You can find information on the two at Difference between Unity and GNOME

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Charles Green
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  • Yes, at the lab I am defaulting on log-in to Gnome. When I switch to System Default (with the little gear icon) to comes up looking quite the same. There was no choice I could see of Unity. – Richard Silbar Oct 01 '14 at 17:04
  • There are some differences under the hood between the two, and of course as you have noticed the desktop is quite different. I would imagine that the decision was made at the lab to run gnome, which I think is the wave of the future. If you are comfortable with the process, you could install gnome at home as well. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TrustyTahr/ReleaseNotes/UbuntuGNOME I think that 14.10, due to release in October will see greater penetration of gnome into the Ubuntu community. – Charles Green Oct 01 '14 at 21:18
  • Thanks, Charles (if you are still watching this thread). I have now installed the Full Gnome Desktop Environment on the home computer and now the two look and act the same. Except that, at home I see the launcher panel, while at the lab I only see it when I click on the Activities button. – Richard Silbar Oct 02 '14 at 14:39
  • @RichardSilbar - the website posts me if you add a comment to a thread I'm following... Since you added the desktop rather than installing Gnome from scratch, you will still have the launcher - adding a desktop seems to combine elements of both systems. Probably not a big deal, although I had trouble initially when I added LXDE and KDE and a few others. The trouble came when I tried to remove stuff. – Charles Green Oct 02 '14 at 15:41