Ubuntu 11.04 Going Back to Gnome

After I upgraded to the latest version of Ubuntu, I noticed the interface is different. It’s called Unity and it’s a minimalistic interface with large icons and auto-hiding menus.

I like having the Applications, Places, System menus at the top and visible. I prefer the Gnome interface because I knew where everything was and the menu does not auto-hide.

You can go back to Gnome through the log-in screen that appears when you boot up Ubuntu. If you are already in Ubuntu, you can log out by clicking on the power button and selecting Log Out…

At the log-in screen, choose your user name and on the bottom of the screen there is a drop menu with Ubuntu selected. Choose Ubuntu Classic and log in and now you’re back to Gnome.

Creating a Screencast with Ubuntu

I wanted to make a screencast that recorded my presentation slides and my voice.

First, I installed xvidcap through the Ubuntu Software Center. Xvidcap recorded the slides but would not record audio. I read the FAQ’s which said to adjust the mixer settings. I turned on the microphone and made sure that the mic levels were high enough. I was able to record my voice with Sound Recorder but I could not get xvidcap to record audio.

Then I installed PulseAudio Volume Control through the Ubuntu Software Center. This post recommends that you run xvidcap from the terminal window with the following command.

padsp xvidcap

When I did this, xvidcap recorded audio but it was choppy and garbled.

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Through System> Administration> Synaptic Package Manager, I installed RecordItNow. Search for “recordmydesktop” and mark all three results (recordmydesktop, gtk-recordmydesktop, and recorditnow) for installation. (I could not get recordmydesktop, another screencast program, to work; it crashed my computer.)

You can run the program by going to Applications> Sound & Video> RecordItNow.

I like how the program has a countdown (5 seconds) before recording starts. You can record the entire desktop or choose a portion of the screen to capture. To do this, you have to left-click on the icon with the square and upside-down triangle. You have to click this icon several times and then a gray box appears on your screen. Then you can resize the box to capture the portion of the screen you want.

With recorditnow I successfully recorded my presentation with audio. By default, it saves the file as .ogv and I uploaded the video to youtube without any problems.

I noticed that the audio and video are slightly out of sync so I had to pause a few seconds before and after I proceeded to the next slide. At the end of my presentation I had to pause about 10 seconds. If I stopped the recording immediately after I stopped talking the last few seconds would be cut off. Other than these minor problems, RecordItNow worked fine for me.