Ubuntu 11.10 is falling back to Unity 2D. How to get back to Unity 3D?

unity unity-2d gui

6,116

Finally solved the problem here! Like @MichaelK said:

[...] Most likely the driver switched to another one and you lost opengl support [...] Well update information on your graphics hardware and driver as well.

So the way I found to reset things was to just purge and install xserver-xorg, after that everything went back to normal:

$ sudo apt-get purge xserver-xorg
$ sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-video-all
$ sudo reboot

Voila! Hope it helps.

ps: The only bad thing now is that every time I plug a secondary monitor on my computer (specially when showing Ubuntu to someone) I have to cross my fingers secretly. This driver switching behavior from Ubuntu is no good man ¬¬

6,116

m4x1m1l14n

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

m4x1m1l14n almost 2 years
It happened some minutes ago when I plugged my secondary monitor and my graphical interface simply crashed. So I had to restart my session. Since the crash Ubuntu insists to use Unity2D fall back instead of the default one. I used to plug the secondary monitor everyday when at home and nothing bad happened before.

This 2D version of the GUI is ugly and has a lot of problems. How can I go back to Unity 3D GUI?

update

It seems somehow I lost my opengl support (driver issues).
```
$ glxinfo

name of display: :0.0
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Error: couldn't find RGB GLX visual or fbconfig

Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
```
And:
```
$ glxgears
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Error: couldn't get an RGB, Double-buffered visual
```
update
```
$ lspci | grep VGA

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
```
How can I revert things and go back to the right driver?
- Michael K over 12 years
  
  can you select unity3D on the login screen? Or does the fallback occur again? Most likely the driver switched to another one and you lost opengl support. Can you chack this with glxinfo and glxgears?
- m4x1m1l14n over 12 years
  
  Exactly, when I choose unity3D I still get Unity2D when I login. It's happening because I lost OpenGL support (I checked it with the command /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p). I'll update the question with the output of the commands.
- Michael K over 12 years
  
  Well update information on your graphics hardware and driver as well.
- cprofitt over 12 years
  
  please run this in a terminal and add the resulting information to your question. lspci | grep VGA
- m4x1m1l14n over 12 years
  
  @cprofitt, take a look at the last question update.
- m4x1m1l14n over 12 years
  
  @MichaelK How can I do that?
- cprofitt over 12 years
  
  @marcio - is this actually an Optimus solution that pairs and Nvidia card with an Intel card? Your lspci line matches mine and I have optimus.
- m4x1m1l14n over 12 years
  
  Not an Nvidia, It's really an Intel video card. I didn't installed any proprietary driver for it, everything was working fine with the default Ubuntu configuration.
Michael K over 12 years

Instead of reinstalling, a dpkg-reconfigure on the packages could do the trick without purging and reinstalling as well.
m4x1m1l14n over 12 years

I tried it and the reconfigure command does not revert to functional behavior. The only real solution I found was reinstalling.
Eliah Kagan almost 12 years

Why run apt-get update after apt-get install ... rather than before?