I recently installed the new Ubuntu 11.04 desktop version. The new interface is really cool, saves space and is really clean.

Also the ability to easily put a window on part of the desktop grid is a feature I always missed in Ubuntu. However I just can’t get used to the fact that unity has no bottom panel anymore. Ofcoure “Super+w” key combination works quite well, but with a bottom panel you’re just one click away to get full access to another window.

I don’t like to get back to using Gnome, but lucky for us we can get the best of both worlds!

Press “Alt+F2” and run the application “gnome-panel“. This will put the default Gnome top and bottom bar over Unity. Now right click on the top gnome panel and choose “Delete this panel“.

This will leave us with Unity and the nice Gnome bottom panel we always had.

At this moment if you restart your computer these settings gnome won’t be loaded. We’ll have to do one last step.

Click on the power button at the right top of the screen and choose “System settings”. Choose “Personal -> Startup applications” and add on with the command “gnome-panel“.