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I'm using Unity 7.5.0 with Ubuntu 17.10, is there a way to enable Grid workspaces ?

What I have tried:

  • Unity Tweak Tool -> Workspace Settings. Changing the number of workspaces here have no effect.
  • Compiz config -> Desktop Size. This has no effect either.
  • Also, no Appearance menu in Settings screen (it looks like this)
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  • Have you had a look at this ? Feb 4, 2018 at 19:35
  • @RobertRiedl Sadly Gnome3 did not work for me. I had to switch to Unity because when I upgraded from 17.04 gdm login screen was broken. Feb 4, 2018 at 19:39
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    pity, have you tried to completely remove all gnome packages and install them again ? I'm sure there are some howtos on here for that. Thats not really an answer, but that shouldn't impact your Unity setup. Feb 4, 2018 at 20:17
  • Thanks, I'll try your suggestion. I have already uninstalled gnome, so it shouldn't be that hard to purge the remaining packages and install gnome all together again. Feb 4, 2018 at 21:32
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    For the best unity experience in 17.10/18.04 one should switch to lightdm vs. gdm3. There are also a few minor issues in the unity session, for 18.04 there will be at least 2 ppa's (one mine) to help deal with these..
    – doug
    Feb 6, 2018 at 13:32

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Installing & using a unity session in 17.10

This is generally quite simple, just go

sudo apt install unity

When done you must reboot, when back at the login screen click on little cog wheel to dropdown session choices & choose unity.

If auto logging in then after the reboot just log out, at the login screen expose the dropdown & choose unity.

Once chosen unity will then become your default login.

To get the best unity session experience one should use lightdm instead of gdm3, to do that simply

sudo apt install lightdm

At the conf prompt choose lightdm, reboot.

If not intending to use gnome-shell after switching to lightdm feel free to remove gdm3 & gnome-shell, i.e. sudo apt purge gdm3 gnome-shell

There are some minor issues, most will be fixed or worked around for 18.04 but not for 17.10. As one example alt+print will not work to screenshot a window. The current workaround is this, (I've 'fixed' it in 18.04 via compiz & gnome-settings-daemon but hoping for more direct fix) -

press and hold Print Screen
press and hold Alt
release Print Screen (and then Alt)

Also if not getting onscreen notifications make sure notify-osd is installed,

sudo apt install notify-osd

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    added something about the notify-osd package as not sure it's included in 17.10, maybe not..
    – doug
    Feb 7, 2018 at 18:08

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