Disable ubuntu 11.04 Unity Global Menu

Posted by {"display_name"=>"greg", "login"=>"greg", "email"=>"greg@udon.org", "url"=>""} on May 09, 2011 · 1 min read

One of the biggest changes in ubuntu 11.04 is the switch to the Unity interface. Unity uses the Mac-style global menu where the menu items for the active application are along the top of the screen instead of the top of the application window.

I'm a longtime user of OS X, Windows and XWindows and prefer to have the menu closer to the application I'm using. In other words, I prefer the XWindows / Microsoft Windows-style menus tied to the application.

The global menu can be disabled for specific applications as described here but I'd like it to be completely disabled.

To change Unity's configuration to use application windows, execute the following command:

$ sudo dpkg -r indicator-appmenu

Reboot ubuntu and you'll be back to Windows-style application menus.