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I updated my system to 11.04.

I can't get used to new unity system. I'd like to move the left unity panel to bottom of screen(like Windows7. More closer is better).

But I can't find the way.
Is it possible?

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90% accept rate
I just wanted to say that this was the reason that brought me back to Ubuntu classic + Docky. I've tried, but I can't get used to the launcher on the left. – egarcia Aug 31 '11 at 9:19
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protected by Oli♦ Apr 29 '11 at 23:45

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4 Answers

up vote 37 down vote accepted

There is now an unofficial Compiz Plugin that allows you to move the Unity 3D (not Unity 2D) launcher from the left to the bottom.

enter image description here

Credit to WebUpd8 - for the latest information I recommend that you read the latest WebUpd8 article.

In summary:

  1. This is the first launchpad PPA release - you can now peruse the source-code. Contact the maintainer with suggested fixes! Remember this is unofficial and can & probably will have many bugs still to be ironed out.
  2. Remember to delete the old launcher code if you have previously installed - rm ~/.compiz-1/plugins/libunityshell.so
  3. Install the PPA - ppa:paullo612/unityshell-rotated
  4. The packages to install are unityshell-rotated libnux-1.0-0
  5. A new plugin Ubuntu Unity Plugin Rotated will be made available in CCSM
  6. There is a likelihood of freezes on installation. If this occurs use CTRL+ALT+F1 to start a TTY, login and restart lightdm with sudo service lightdm restart. Rerun ccsm to enable the new plugin
  7. This plugin replaces the official Unity Plugin. You will obviously not receive further bugfixes from the Ubuntu development team - you will be reliant on the PPA maintainer to supply bug-fixes

warning please see this Q&A as to potential stability issues using CCSM

Linked Questions:

  1. What are PPAs and how do I use them?
  2. Source code
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up vote 31 down vote

As of 11.04, 11.10, and 12.04 you CAN'T officially...

And, so far, no Canonical plans to change that. Here's a quote from Mark from the the bug report:

I think the report actually meant that the launcher should be movable to other edges of the screen. I'm afraid that won't work with our broader design goals, so we won't implement that. We want the launcher always close to the Ubuntu button.

I remember reading lots of forums and rationales about why it is so, and tons of people complaining about it.

But... think for a while... it truly makes sense for it to be on the left and not at the bottom. 99% of todays monitors are widescreen. Meaning lots of extra horizontal space (mostly sub-used), while vertical space is premium.

Most apps and websites do not use your whole screen width (check the large vertical background bars in both sides of screen of askubuntu, for example). But they DO use the full vertical length (actually, they scroll 3, 5, 10 times yout height). Meaning lots and lots of scrolling. And then you subtract titlebar, menu bar, favorites bar, tabs bar, etc, all of them sucking up your precious vertical space. So adding the launcher on top/bottom would make things even worse, While theres plenty of extra, "idle" horizontal space.

True, windows panel is a well crafted one... but the design choice of unity to put it at side and not bottom is a wise one, once you get used to it. And its worth doing so. Your mouse wheel will say thanks ;)

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I agree the side panel is better, but it's on the wrong side. – Segfault Apr 28 '11 at 13:43
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I disagree with your off-the-cuffs assessment that '99% of todays monitors are wide-screen'. Where I work, we ALL have our monitors turned to portrait mode. All 1200 of us. Have you tried unity on a portrait monitor? It's horrible, because of your exact argument. Have you tried unity where you put one monitor on top of another? It's awful. Have you tried unity with synergy with another computer to the left? Also awful. None of these situations should warrant having to ditch unity completely, but without the option to customize the location, that's your ONLY choice. That's ridiculous. – tamale May 24 '11 at 15:49
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All well and good but I'm running Natty in a VM on one monitor with another one off to the left, meaning it's virtually impossible to position the pointer close enough to that edge of the screen to get the launcher to show without accidentally moving it outside the VM window. I still haven't seen any reasonable argument as to why it shouldn't be moveable to the right. – Martin McNulty Jun 13 '11 at 9:45
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@MestreLion Concede my comment wasn't strictly relevant to the original question (sorry!) but "usable while having to jump back and forth" would win out over "unusable, have to go back to Ubuntu Classic" very easily for me. Moving the launcher is possible in OS X, Windows, and previous versions of Ubuntu and so it seems like a step back. – Martin McNulty Jun 13 '11 at 13:55
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@MesteLion you make excellent points for why that should be the default, but that does not at all argue for why those of us with reasons to deviate from the default should not have an easy way to do so. – TimothyAWiseman Dec 5 '11 at 17:45
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up vote 3 down vote

It is not possible to move the panel at all. But there is some panel mod packed as deb package that allows you to do that. If I remember where I've seen it I'll post it here.

regards.

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wow, I can't believe that Canonical didn't support this feature what I want. – Benjamin Apr 5 '11 at 9:43
Yea, a lot of people feel that way. Till now I used to use AWN as suggested by sagarchalise, but now I got used to it. Besides if you have wide screen it makes more sense. – danizmax Apr 5 '11 at 9:52
Don't they even have the plan to support this in 11.04 official version? Actually, I guess they don't have much time to implement to do it. After all, I changed to "classic" version, and I'm using almostly same system as 10.10. That's not I expected. T.T I'll consider to use AWN. Thanks. – Benjamin Apr 5 '11 at 10:04
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Benjamin, its not about time to implement, it was a design choice not to allow it. They knew everyone would try to do so, and they think this would ruin the whole Unity experience, design and usability-wise. They think that you should either try Unity as a whole (pun intended) or not use it at all. Some set of design ideas only work well when used toghether. – MestreLion Apr 6 '11 at 7:53
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This makes using things like Synergy kinda awkward since you pass the menu of one screen when going to the left screen. – Ramon Tayag Sep 10 '11 at 0:17
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up vote 1 down vote

I think the answer is "NO" according to this. May be you should try alternatives like AWN, Docky etc

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or Windows. just forget about this poor clone of the taskbar already – prusswan 7 hours ago
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