It seems that in a never-ending attempt to attract new users, get headlines on Slashdot, and generally be seen as ‘modern’, some free software projects will continuously change their software in quite radical ways, often to the cost of their users.  One is reminded of the Marx quote “All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned” (1848).  Ubuntu make more changes than most distros, and version 11.10 brought one of the bigger changes: the replacement of GNOME 2, with either Unity, by default, or GNOME 3.  I won’t go over the arguments again, but there has been much gnashing and wailing, and mini-flame wars on various forums, mailing lists and so on.  I upgraded to 11.10 this week, and have spent much time finding a way to get back to what I know.  Here’s what I did:

This site was a useful start, introducing me to GNOME extensions, specifically one to hide the panels, but it was written for Fedora.  Then I found this, which is a PPA repository of extensions for Ubuntu.  Close, but it still didn’t have what I wanted.

However, it pointed me to the dconf-editor, which is a part of dconf-tools, and allows editing of virtually every aspect of GNOME.  So, if this isn’t already installed, you can do so either via Software Centre, Synaptic or apt-get.  Then, launch it from the main menu, under ‘System Tools > dconf Editor’.

• To make the panels autohide, navigate to: ‘org > gnome > gnome-panel > layout > toplevels > bottom-panel’ and select ‘auto-hide’.  Do the same for ‘org > gnome > gnome-panel > layout > toplevels > top-panel’. While you’re there, you might want to change some other settings, like the speed with which they disappear, although I didn’t.  If you go wrong, you can always click ‘Set to Default’ at the bottom-right.
• To remove the workplace switcher (the buttons at bottom-right which let you use multiple desktops), navigate to ‘org > gnome > gnome-panel > layout’, click on ‘object-id-list’, and delete the part which says ‘window-switcher’, including the comma, so it looks like this: [‘menu-bar’, ‘clock’, ‘notification-area’, ‘user-menu’, ‘window-list’]
• To move the clock to the right-hand side of the top panel, go to ‘org > gnome > gnome-panel > layout > objects > clock’ and change ‘pack-type’ from ‘center’ to ‘end’

If you have any other things you find in dconf-editor, to get GNOME 3 to look more like GNOME 2, let me know in the comments.

Marx, K. (1848). Girl Talk – The Communist Manifesto. Retrieved November 11th, 2011, from www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm