Linux Mint Forums

I just installed Linux Mint to get some experience in using Linux. However, as I was setting up all my preferences, I noticed that some things were acting weird, like my Brightness settings resetting after each reboot. When I tried to look up how to fix this, I noticed that many solutions said to look for something in the mintMenu. At this point I realized that after installation, my user interface looked exactly like that of Ubuntu's, rather than the typical Linux Mint user interface with the mintMenu. The only time I recall seeing the mintMenu was when I was using the Linux Mint from the Live CD prior to installing it. Could someone please tell me how to bring back the Linux Mint UI with the mintMenu?

I could not agree more. What appears included is the dummy Ubuntu menu with the favorites coming from Gnome Shell. Mint menu, at least for me, was the foundation of the Mint experience. I think this is my biggest disappointment with M12. I loved the ability to install, remove, edit, change icons etc.

I would love to have the Mint menu back. In all honesty I fear Mint will lose its identity over time. Folks will be using Gnome Shell not Linux Mint.

Klaw117 wrote:I just installed Linux Mint

Which version?

Same here. I have installed the new Lisa V12.

Aren't you using the Gnome 3 Fallback?
Mint 12 has a menu on the bottom-left if you're running the Shell instead of fallback mode.

Make sure your graphics driver is properly installed. Please run this command and post the output:

inxi gives:

Graphics: Card: nVidia G72 [GeForce 7300 LE] bus-ID: 03:00.0 X.Org 1.10.4 driver nvidia Resolution 2960x1050@50.0hz
GLX Renderer GeForce 7300 LE/PCI/SSE2 GLX Version 2.1.2 NVIDIA 280.13 Direct Rendering Yes

and Driver NVIDIA (Version current) is installed.

How can I make sure to use the Shell instead of Gnome fallback?

For me, the output was:

Graphics: Card-1: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller bus-ID: 00:02.0
Card-2: ATI NI Seymour [AMD Radeon HD 6470M] bus-ID: 01:00.0
X.Org 1.10.4 drivers intel unloaded: vesa,fbdev Resolution 1366x768@60.0hz
GLX Renderer N/A GLX Version N/A Direct Rendering N/A

I also have a proprietary ATI driver installed from the Additional Drivers window. Also, in Advanced Settings, the Shell Extensions section has nothing in it and in the Theme section, the Shell theme line can't list the shell extensions (there's an orange warning triangle right next to the grayed-out list).

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I'm using Linux Mint 12.

Klaw112, you're having hybrid graphics and you're currently using the Intel card.
The ATI proprietary driver screws up Intel so that it won't load Gnome Shell anymore on that card. You might be able to switch to the ATI graphics card: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HybridGraphics
But uninstalling the driver is the easiest way to get a working system.

robertwalter: you can click the gear on the login screen and choose Gnome 3 Shell instead of fallback mode.

Thanks a lot! I uninstalled the ATI drivers (which will probably save my battery life anyway) and now the Linux Mint UI is back. I still have some questions regarding various aspects of the user interface, but I'll ask those in the appropriate forum sections.

Yes. The menu is now a dummy menu. Much like the gauges on modern cars. And similar to the plain Ubuntu menus. I appreciate very much all the hard work that goes into a new distro. I know how very hard it is to make decisions that everyone on the dev team is happy with, not to mention trying to please users. However, I do like tweaking and getting under the hood, but I got lazy when Slackware came out with X-windows in the mid-nineties.

So please Mint Windows Dev Team consider putting the more indepth functions back. I had to go command line to add user to vboxusers. I am not expecting a hexadecimal editor , just the same or better functionality of Linux mint 11.

And before anyone takes my post the wrong way. Developers rock! and Linux Mint rocks!

Kudos to the Linux Mint Team for a job well done!!!