0

Yes, this is a noob question, but that's how bad I am at navigating in Unity.

I have Ubuntu 12.04 and I have XBMC to start directly at login (the machine is used primarily as my media player), and to respawn when it crashes/is stopped (this explains how, if that matters). What I am unable to figure out is how to get access to the Unity desktop. Is there not a keyboard shortcut I can use or something?

There must be some way to do it, since if I attach a USB drive to the machine, for example, it mounts, I get a window popping up and THEN I can access the Unity panel, and I can alt+tab my way back and forth between XBMC and that window. But as soon as I close it, I cannot get back to accessing Unity panel (and its GUI functions).

So my question, more specifically, is if there is a way to put XBMC in the background or something so that I may access the Unity desktop. Or another good way around the problem.

2
  • 1
    Try pressing backslash / to toggle windowed mode. In windowed mode, you should be able to access other windows with alt+tab.
    – Smile4ever
    Sep 26, 2014 at 13:36
  • Thanks, that did not work, but it got me playing around with other options I was not sure I had tried out, and suddenly I found a way! (See answer) Sep 26, 2014 at 13:48

1 Answer 1

1

Thanks to @Smile4ever and the excessive key-pushing his suggestion induced in me, I found a solution: simply pressing AltGr made the trick! Then I suddenly enter the Unity GUI. Where it wants me to enter a command, admittedly, but that does not matter, since I can now access the desktop, minimise XBMC or do whatever I want.

One headache less for me -- having to insert an external disk in the machine every time I wanted to access the Unity GUI did not really strike me as the most sleek solution.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .