linux mint12 live cd no task bar

[john.charles]

I am running the live CD and I cannot get a task bar to show.
Mint 11 runs beautifully on this system, but the Mint 12 live CD shows the above problem.
I have 768 Kb RAM and a 80Gb HDD. My CPU is an Intel Celeron 2.4Ghz
My video card is a Brookdale-G
Any ideas?
P.S. I live in Perth, Australia so will probably be in bed when you see this post.

[douglas2525]

I'm having exactly the same problem with the live CD & DVD on two different systems. The CD & DVD both boot, but I don't have a bottom bar (makes it hard to take a test drive).

- Desktop with Pentium 4, 512MB RAM, Intel 82865G graphics controller
- Laptop with Celeron M, 1GB RAM, Intel 82852/82855 GM/GME graphics controller

Note that I checked the MD5 and verified the burns.

Both systems boot up Ubuntu (don't hit me!) from CD just fine.

Looking forward to wise advice from the forum members.

[duckson]

Same with me. No task bar.
Just decided to try Mint on my old computer: Dell Dimension 2400, P4, 512MB, 40GB HDD.
Onboard video.

Nothing works!

[douglas2525]

This thread may have a solution:

viewtopic.php?f=90&t=95515&p=546541&hilit=linux+mint12+no+top+or+bottom+bar#p546541

[douglas2525]

Hi, I installed Mint12 on one of my problem machines. The solution in the link above works fine.

It appears to be a problem with the latest version of the Gnome interface and older graphics chipsets.

The trick is to install to hard drive, ensuring that your password is required to log into the system upon startup. This is the default setting during installation.

Then, when you start up and reach the login screen, you will see a small "gear" icon that lets you choose Gnome Classic. It remembers which one you chose for subsequent startups (you can change it if you want to).

Gnome Classic is slightly different (applications menu is top left) but seems to be fine otherwise.

Happy Mint-ing!