gnome-panel 2.32.1-0ubuntu6 forces Unity on gnome-classic session users

[Jonathan Reed]

Binary package hint: gnome-panel

The latest release of gnome-panel in Natty seems to have forced the "Unity" interface on me while ignoring my session type. When I specify "Ubuntu Classic" at the login screen, I expect to to see a traditional panel. Instead I get a Unity-style panel, including the "Start Menu" and the menubar/panel combination.

Note: I believe this is a gnome-panel bug that originates from the changes in made in 2.32.1-0ubuntu6, not a gnome-session bug.

[Jonathan Reed (jdreed)]

Relevant info:

$ lsb_release -sd
Ubuntu natty (development branch)
$ apt-cache policy gnome-panel
gnome-panel:
  Installed: 1:2.32.1-0ubuntu6
  Candidate: 1:2.32.1-0ubuntu6
  Version table:
 *** 1:2.32.1-0ubuntu6 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[Jonathan Reed (jdreed)]

This bug is still present as of the latest updates (March 17), and UI freeze is in a week. Can anyone confirm whether this change was by design or not? Because if there's no way to opt-out of Unity on a per-session basis and use the "classic" (read: Lucid, Maverick) interface, then I have to update a lot of documentation and re-train 6000 or so users between now and April.

[Jonathan Reed (jdreed)]

This is apparently fixed as of April 11, in that if I create a new local account and select "Ubuntu Classic", I essentially get a Lucid panel. However, for accounts that used the previously-broken "Ubuntu Classic", I still get appmenu, presumably because the gconf migration path is broken.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue that you reported is one that should be reproducible with the live environment of the Desktop CD of the stable release - Oneiric Ocelot. It would help us greatly if you could test with it so we can work on getting it fixed. You can find out more about the development release at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/ . Thanks again and we appreciate your help.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

I am going to go ahead and close this bug since Ubuntu's policy is not to override user configurations. This bug was not present in any Ubuntu stable release, just in the beta testing.