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Ubuntu Version: 16.04

I had installed Gnome Desktop environment using sudo apt-get install ubuntu-gnome-desktop

But when I logged out and tried to switch the Desktop environment, clicking on the Unity logo froze the system, and I was only able to move the mouse cursor. I forced a restart and the same thing happened again.

So I went ahead and logged into my account, but I found these problems:
1. The laptop touchpad's taps are no longer recognized as clicks, only the button-clicks are recognized.
2. The Desktop background is black and only the section under the Dock is displaying the wallpaper.1
3. The UI of the menus and settings and other parts of the system are shown without any padding, just the plain-text and the system icons have become quite large.2

I have tried the following:

Uninstalled all components of Gnome

sudo apt-get upgrade and sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
unity --reset`
sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop unity compizconfig-settings-manager upstart`

And none of these seem to fix the issue(s).
Everything else works fine, I can open the terminal or file manager or the browser. I do not want to reinstall Ubuntu , please help me fix this mess. Thank you.

share|improve this question
    
try this gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.background active true – thangdc94 Jun 15 '16 at 4:48
    
@NgocThangPham The desktop background issue is resolved. But the others, such as no borders and padding in buttons and the touchpad issue are still there. – Yankee Jun 15 '16 at 5:46
    
Please post gsettings list-recursively | grep thumbnail-size output – thangdc94 Jun 15 '16 at 7:24
    
com.canonical.Unity.Thumbnailer max-thumbnail-size 1920 org.gnome.nautilus.icon-view thumbnail-size 64 org.gnome.nautilus.icon-view thumbnail-size 64 – Yankee Jun 15 '16 at 7:29
    
Did you try Ctrl + Mouse scroll wheel to resize icon size? – thangdc94 Jun 15 '16 at 7:35
up vote 1 down vote
  1. To active Background use:

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.background active true

  1. Resize icon size use:

Ctrl + Mouse scroll wheel to resize icon size

  1. Touchpad problem can be solved

Go to System settings.

Go to Mouse and Touchpad.

Under Touchpad options, enable Tap to click checkbox.

share|improve this answer
    
Thanks. But xserver-xorg-input-synaptics is already installed and is the latest version. This used to work before the whole Gnome installation and reboot procedure. – Yankee Jun 15 '16 at 7:44
    
I edited my answer. Can you check it? – thangdc94 Jun 15 '16 at 7:48
    
Still doesn't work. Thank you for all the help though. – Yankee Jun 15 '16 at 7:50
    
Can you join chat? – thangdc94 Jun 15 '16 at 8:01
up vote 0 down vote

I had a similar issue, and was able to solve it with:

sudo apt-get autoremove

Hope that helps!

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