Downgrading your Xubuntu Core

I’m having problems with my new updated Xubuntu core as I have mentioned at my previous post.

After some good search and reading I have found a possible solution. There is a good way to downgrade your core without major incidents.

Here are the steps (got from Ubuntu Forums)

1. Reboot your machine and when Xubuntu is about to start hit ESC (or the key set to show the menu options at boot). You should see about 3 to 5 entries where one of them should be a older version of your core. Choose the right version and you are done.

Now if you don’t see the right core, then this is what you need to do:

1. Using Synaptic install a linux-image (use linux-image to search in synaptic) that reflect the right core that you want to downgrade. Take note on the information about the core. Ex.: 2.6.31-14-generic

2. Open your menu list at your Grub boot menu and see what options do you have to start your Xubuntu (use terminal).

mousepad /boot/grub/menu.lst

Now add the new menu core installed following the same format as the other ones.

title        Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-14-generic
root         ()/ubuntu/disks
kernel       /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=xxxxxxxxxxxxxx loop=/ubuntu/disks/root.disk ro ROOTFLAGS=syncio quiet splash
initrd       /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic

title        Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-14-generic (recovery mode)
root         ()/ubuntu/disks
kernel       /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx loop=/ubuntu/disks/root.disk ro ROOTFLAGS=syncio  single
initrd       /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic

Remember to always have your files backup. No matter if you are on Windows, Linux or Mac, a full recovery can always brings unexpected results (even knowing that on Linux is mostly likely to have a smooth transition).

Don’t upgrade to Xubuntu 9.10 Karmic

I have been working with Xubuntu for a while now and so far it has worked wonders at a point which I haven’t used Windows for months.

About 2 weeks ago I have upgraded my current Xubuntu 9.04 to 9.10 and this has become my biggest mistake ever.

Since the upgrade this is the kind of errors that I have been getting:

• Skype doesn’t have any more sounds or can’t find mic
• Applications Bar gone
• Turning off or rebooting fails drastically making a hardware shutdown and power up necessary
• And the latest, my XServer is gone (all the user interface that looks like Windows)  and with it the login screen (everything now is terminal)

From all the troubles so far, the Xserver is by far the worst. Since it is gone I haven’t been able to run it using my user and to execute it I have to run everything as root.

After making a short trip to Windows and checking Google to find some solution at least for the XServer, I could manage to make the everything come back, but all using root.

If you are about to upgrade → DONT – This can be my best advise for you.

But if you are finding yourself in the same position that I was today then this is what you should do (you should be seeing only terminal at your screen):

1. execute display – if your x-server have a problem, then it will warn you about
2. now execute startx – this will start the xserver and all display options for your user. If you can see your Desktop, yeay, nothing more is necessary, otherwise you will need to run it as root (sudo startx)

Now is waiting for a good release of Xubuntu to solve this issues or reinstall everything from scratch.

How to solve the disapearance from the applications bar / menu from Xubuntu 9.10

For the first time today I have got a small issue that was painful to solve.

It’s quite hard to walk around on Xubuntu when you just can’t see the application bar and don’t have many shortcuts on Desktop to help you out.

Here is the situation:

- Pidgin Msgr or any other application suddenly stopped and forced the system to a lock.
- Forcing a reboot is necessary
- After successful reboot and logon, all you can see is the desktop icons. No application bar, no applications menu, nothing.

How to solve:

1. Open Terminal – if you don’t have it opened, click with the right click of the mouse on desktop and you will see as one of the options the terminal.

2. Now check if your applications menu, XFCE is running:

pgrep -l xfce4-panel

2.1 If there was something there, then you would see something as:

5535 xfce4-panel

2.2 Only do this next step if you have XFCE running

xfce4-panel --exit

3. Backup the configuration just to be safe:

cp ~/.config/xfce4/panel/panels.xml ~/panels.xml.old

4. Remove the old file

rm ~/.config/xfce4/panel/panels.xml

5. Now you can either do 2 things:

Run the applications menu from terminal and whenever you close the terminal so the applications menu will be closed
Add a launcher on desktop (recommended)

If you are going to run the applications menu from the terminal, then all you need to do is:

xfce4-panel

Now adding the launcher is a bit easier and whenever this happens again, you can simply click on the launcher on desktop.
Right click on an empty space on desktop and choose launcher. For the name and command you will need to enter:

xfce4-panel

Choose an icon to identify it (if you want to) and your application shortcut is ready. Double click on it and the menu should automatically appear up top.
Note: most of these steps where given by K.Mandla at 

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=312394