One of the wallpapers has XFCE on it, but I didn’t change my desktop environment. Also of note, when I open the terminal it doesn’t look the same as it used to. Instead of the dark purple window it’s a black window with white text and the window’s icon is a red “X” with a dark blue “T” on it.
This is a headless machine and I connect to it through remote-desktop.
If I go through the applications menu (manually clicking, the super key does nothing and my keyboard does not have a “Fn” key) and go to settings I get the window on the left. Changing the settings in this window does nothing. Right clicking the desktop and clicking “desktop settings” I get the window on the right. This window correctly changes the wallpaper.
When I open the home folder I get Thunar.
My guess is there are two desktop environments competing or something right now? How can I fix this?
Also, weirdly, if I click my name in the upper right I can “lock screen” and “log out…” but I can’t “switch user,” “suspend,” or “shut down.”
Thank you in advance for any help.
It looks like you are running XFCE instead of GNOME (the normal Ubuntu desktop). I’m not sure how that happened… but you an always just install another desktop.
For instance, you can try to make sure you have the
ubuntu-desktoporubuntu-desktop-minimalmetapackage installed:sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop-minimalAfter that, the login manager should allow you to select the Ubuntu session rather than the XFCE one.
Hey thanks. I had started following this guide right before I saw your post:
Essentially the same thing, except the guide uses “apt-get install –reinstall ubuntu-desktop” I used “sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop” and it found stuff to install. The terminal is running now. I’ll update the post once it’s done. Hope this works!
Ok, so after installing ubuntu-desktop and reinstalling ubuntu-desktop the desktop hasn’t changed.
Ctrl+alt+T brings up the familiar terminal now though, and I can open a nautilus window by typing “nautilus.”
“echo $DESKTOP_SESSION” returns “xfce.” I’m logging into this machine remotely. Since I’m remote, I don’t think I can log out and still be “connected” to change the DE. Is there another way to change it?
If I connect a screen to the machine the desktop doesn’t load, I had to change a setting (of which I can’t remember, for a reason I can’t remember - something to do with optimizing the machine for remote desktop) and now the desktop only renders on the remote session.
How are you using it remotely? VNC?
Perhaps the server config started defaulting to XFCE. Maybe what happened is entire XFCE DE got marked as a dependency, installed during update, and then when some config defaulting to XFCE thanks to this became valid, you ended up here.
If it’s VNC, what do you have in
~/.vnc/xstartup? Maybe a line likexfce4-session &?
There are different flavours of Ubuntu with the other desktop environments (called Xubuntu, Kubuntu, and so on). The posted screenshot is indeed a mishmash of Gnome and Xfce though.
I used Ubuntu from version 8.04 to 18.04 and not once did I have a successful upgrade between major versions. There is always something that gets broken to the point that a reinstall is necessary.
well, I managed to upgrade from 16.04 to 22.04 without any major issues
Oh, so it’s not just me either. It’s one of the reasons I’ll never install Ubuntu.
Me too.
I guess it switched desktop environments on you? If you’re logged out there’s supposed to be a way you can switch between desktop environments. It makes sense that the GNOME Settings app would only change wallpaper settings for GNOME, which I think is the main Ubuntu desktop environment. Are you sure you didn’t upgrade to a version of Ubuntu that uses XFCE instead of GNOME?
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You say this machine is headless. Is it at a remote location? If not, is it feasible to connect it to a monitor an keyboard for a few minutes? If so then you could logout, switch DE, and then log back in. That would hopefully set the DE you prefer as user default.
If that’s not possible, then some of the solutions discussed here might be applicable.
Your machine is broke. Time to reinstall
Your problem is that you’re still using Ubuntu, after Canonical started injecting advertising and wants you to pay for it now.
Try a different distro, like anything besides Ubuntu…
My primary machine runs Pop!_OS, but I’ve had this machine running for years. Back when I installed Ubuntu on it, Canonical wasn’t widely known as a bad guy. I’ve got various services running that I would need to resetup if I started from scratch.
I get where you’re coming from, but to migrate everything over would take so much time. For now I would really like it if my desktop just worked correctly. When I get the time I can look into putting mint or debian on it.
Popos is based on Ubuntu, but maintained by a separate company and has major differences. I’ve also been running it on a couple of machines for years and have been quite happy with it.
I feel your pain from a distance, I really do. ☹️
The best advice I have in the meantime is to prepare for a full backup of all packages and consider switching to a different Debian based distro…
That link seems to be filled with ways to clone drives, but if I’m migrating I wouldn’t want to clone ubuntu and take it with me.
I know that your /home folder can be on a different drive/partition, but can you install files to a different location as well? Like install docker etc. in your /home folder or something and then if you switch distros just bring your /home folder with you and remake the links to the apps or something.
As user-focused as linux is (at least linux users), I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some tool that made this easy. But idk.
Wanna hear a scary command I’ve used before?
sudo aptitude reinstall '~i'Not for the faint of heart, nor meant for a fresh install, but that literally reinstalls every single registered package in Debian based distro.
Edit: If you ever dare use that command, you better make 2 pots of coffee and roll 3 joints, cuz it’ll take a good while…
I sorta had a feeling that wasn’t necessarily the best link after I posted it. Check this for more info (I’m on my phone right now…)
