Unity completely broken after upgrade to 12.10?

Solution 1:

I had some hassle with the proprietary NVidia drivers too, but at some point was sure it was finally corrected, but Unity was still broken.

I also noted that using a guest account, Unity was displaying fine, so it was a per-user setting. This here helped: dconf reset -f /org/compiz/ (had to reconfigure the docking bar but that's acceptable).

Solution 2:

As i see in log compiz plugin init failed i would try to reset compiz manager to default settings maybe it'll help

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwFG9XpdYEg
  http://ubuntuguide.net/how-to-reset-unity-in-ubuntu-12-10-quantal
  

Or else i recommend to completely* (with all settings*)remove unity via synaptic and reinstall it again or use terminal:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall unity,

sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop

Think for yourself if is it usefull

Solution 3:

I had the same issue and it appeared that it was linked to my AMD graphic card's driver.

I fixed it following this procedure. I used the 3rd-party repository created by Tomasz Makarewicz.

Basically, this procedure explains three ways to install the AMD Catalyst missing drivers. As it is well explain on the page, there is no point to copy the information here.

Hope it helps!

Solution 4:

I had a very similar problem. I used unity-reset tool that I found from another post here:

From Git To install

git clone https://github.com/phanimahesh/unity-revamp.git
cd unity-revamp
chmod +x unity-reset.py
ln -s ./unity-reset.py /usr/bin/unity-reset

To run

unity-reset

From Amith's PPA To install:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:amith/ubuntutools
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unity-reset

To use:

unity-reset

Solution 5:

For cards newer than the 3XXX the best way to resolve this is to install the kernel headers. First you need to revert to the original Xorg driver that does work. (right mouse click on the desktop and selecting "Change Desktop" get's you in the menu where you find "Software Sources")

It appears that the proprietary drivers need to be compiled to the kernel but can't due to missing headers.

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic 

After that just install the proprietary driver you fancy. It worked for me.