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My ubuntu 17.10 is running with gnome-shell on Wayland. It was upgraded from ubuntu 16.04 which had already had gnome-shell installed and ubuntu unity removed.

The gnome-shell desktop now, however, seems slightly different from a newly installed 17.04 desktop, in that

1. ubuntu dock

The ubuntu-dock is not installed by default. I installed it from source and found there is no dock option in the system setting interface. The dock is placed at bottom and cannot be shifted or resized.

2. login chooser

There are two login options in the GDM interface, 'Gnome on Wayland' by default, and 'Gnome on Xorg' as alternative, whereas those for a newly installed 17.10 desktop should be 'Ubuntu on Wayland' and 'Ubuntu on Xorg‘.

3. xorg residual

I have removed all the xorg components in the system, but there is still a “Gnome on Xorg' option listed in the GDM login chooser.

What I want

I want to use ubuntu dock of smaller size placed at left instead of bottom, and to eliminate the Xorg option in the login screen (forgive me for this obsessive-compulsive desire).

What should I do?

muru
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funicorn
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2 Answers2

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To shrink the size of Ubuntu Dock run

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock extend-height false

as suggested here.

To place Ubuntu Dock at the left run

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock dock-position 'LEFT'

To get rid of Xorg entries from the greeter remove/rename (something.desktop to something.desktop.backup etc.) entries in /usr/share/xsessions.

pomsky
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  • Many thanks. The steps solve my problems in Ubuntu 17.10. I found though the intrinsic thing is ubuntu is running on genuine gnome-desktop instead of ubuntu-desktop, indicated by the env XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP set as 'GNOME'. If I open gnome-control-center after setting the env as 'gnome:UBUNTU, the dock item appears as that in a fresh installation does. So it is really about why GDM cannot recognize the ubuntu-desktop in the first place. – funicorn Nov 04 '17 at 11:15
2

Fresh installation often easiest and fastest

It is often easiest and fastest to make a fresh installation instead of upgrading from a previous version.

  • Backup your personal files.

  • Install a fresh system.

  • Install the additional program packages that you remember (that you need).

  • Copy back your personal files from the backup. It helps if you use a separate data partition for your personal data.

  • Later on, when you need another program package, install it. This way you will get rid of old program packages, that you will not use.

sudodus
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