Restore Panels In Ubuntu Back To Their Default Settings
Messed up your panels in Gnome? Maybe your new to Ubuntu and accidentally deleted items or the panel itself and now you can't figure out how to get it back.
Sure, you can add a new panel and rebuild it by adding the items back on the panel.
Instead of going through the trouble, there is an easy fix that will restore your panels back to their default settings quickly.
Open up a Terminal window, by clicking on Applications \ Accessories \ Terminal. Or, if you deleted the top panel and cannot access the menus, just press ALT+F2 and in the run dialog box, type gnome-terminal then click on Run.
You can also browse for applications, such as Terminal from the Run window, by clicking on the arrow icon next to 'Show list of known applications" and browse for Terminal.
Once the Terminal window opens, enter the following command at the prompt:
gconftool-2 - -shutdown
(Note: There should be no spaces between the two dashes before shutdown.)
EDIT - Reader nickrud has suggested a better method instead of shutting down gconfd. Instead use the following command (thanks nickrud!)
gconftool - -recursive-unset /apps/panel
(Remember: There should be no spaces between the two dashes before shutdown.)
Then enter the next command:
rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
And enter one more command:
pkill gnome-panel
That's it!
Both top and bottom panels will appear (if missing) with their default settings. Now you can customize them to your preference and get on with using Ubuntu.
NOTE: This method will work in Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) and Hardy Heron (8.04) version of Ubuntu.
Source: ethernal.org
Filed under Ubuntu And Linux Tips by Watching The Net
Comments on Restore Panels In Ubuntu Back To Their Default Settings »
I did what you said when i accidentally deleted my bottom panel.
The top panel resets and appears. but the bottom one does not appear.
and one more thing,
the command
gconftool-2 –shutdown
does not work it gives an error message
Run 'gconftool-2 –help' to see a full list of available command line options.
when used as gconftool-2 shutdown
does not give any error message
I use Ubuntu 8.04
@sankar
OOPS! There was an syntax error in the first command. Here is the command to use:
gconftool-2 - -shutdown
There should be no spaces between the two dashes before shutdown (Firefox has trouble displaying them without a space).
I have edited the article. Also this tip was tested on version 8.04 (Hardy Heron).
This worked fantastically. A million thanks!
thanx! this article saved me a lot of time for my friend,why not to write first command like it should be ?
gconftool-2 –shutdown
oops , i understood<sorry
Thanks alot!! I was puzzled for a couple of days with that one.
thank you so much!! Didn't work the first time, but after several tries, it worked out perfectly.
Thank you so much for this.
@Quyen
Glad to help out!
Wow, thanks a lot
It works~!
There's no reason to shutdown gconfd with gconftool –shutdown. gconftool is quite capable of pruning the tree while gconfd is running, use
gconftool –recursive-unset /apps/panel
Killing gconfd is not a very good idea. Most (if not all) gnome apps keep their settings there, and one of them may very well restart gconfd before you get a chance to run your rm command.
hm, I don't care much for the formatting of messages here
it's
gconftool gconftool - -recursive-unset /apps/panel
( dash - no space - dash no space recursive-unset )
@nickrud
Firefox + site does not like dashes… ; -)
Thanks for the great tip. I have edited the article with credit for your suggestion.
Thanks. This helped me a lot.
This command doesn't work for me, I am using Ubuntu 7.10.
What's wrong with my Ubuntu 7.10
FMZ, try this:
In a terminal, run ps -A | grep gnome-panel , if you see it (meaning it's running), run:
alt-f2 gconftool –recursive-unset /apps/panel && killall gnome-panel
if you don't, run:
alt-f2 gconftool –recursive-unset /apps/panel && gnome-panel