My brief look at it on my laptop, I found most of the stuff through the top
button icon. Remember to tap for more apps. Â Wish they thought to shrink the
icons, but that would be too old fashion...Mint 12 is starting to look better
with their tweaks.

By "task bar" I am assuming that you mean the top panel. Were you running
GNOME 2.x or Unity with the previous version? If it was GNOME then I have
bad news for you. It is no longer available in the repositories. Ubuntu
switched to GNOME 3 from GNOME 2 with 11.10. That means no more GNOME as
you know it. The top panel is gone and is replaced with a side Launcher and
a Dash button at the top of the Launcher. No more menus.

The new interface is called Unity which is a shell that runs on top of
GNOME 3. The decision to kill GNOME 2 was made by GNOME and not Ubuntu.
They have their own Shell which unfortunately for you does not work or look
like the old one either.

You have options. All of these alternatives are in the repositories and can
be installed WITHOUT re-installing.
maketecheasier.com/.../27

There is also a faux GNOME that gives a top panel on top of the GNOME 3
base. It looks a bit like the old one with menus, but does not work the
same. It has a GNOME 3 base. It is the GNOME Shell session fallback.

to get GNOME shell install gnome-shell.
to get GNOME Fallback install gnome-session-fallback
to get KDE install kubuntu-desktop
to get XFCE install xubuntu-desktop
to get LXDE install lubuntu-desktop
alternatively you could install kde, afce or lxde respectively. This
removes the Canonical branding.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zABkGcaWv6M

Other choices are to re-install. You could install Ubuntu 11.04 (you cannot
rollback, unfortunately), 10.04 (which has GNOME 2 and is good with support
until April 2013) or Linux Mint which does not provide upgrades, but offers
a more traditional layout. However, note that The upcoming Mint does away
with GNOME 2 as well and will offer a similar faux GNOME experience as the
GNOME Session Fallback mentioned above and for that you do not need to
re-install. The big difference is that GNOME's fallback has the menu and
panel at the top and Mint puts it at the bottom like Windows.

You have more options still. You can stick with Unity and try to learn it.
You can add things to Unity or GNOME Shell. There are many extensions and
add-ons such as bottom panels (Tint2) and even a menu button. Most require
adding PPAs to your sources list but they provide good instructions on this
and then you install them through the Software Centre or Synaptic.

A useful resource for anyone who wants to tweak GNOME Shell or Unity in
11.10:
www.webupd8.org/.../...fter-installing-ubuntu.html

Yee-eah but isn't that a bit of a long way round the basic problem?

All (well, most) functions that were in preferences and administration under
GNOME are still present in Unity, it's just a question of finding them. In 11.04
there was a System Settings item on the menu in the top right hand corner, same
one you use to shut down. But it's gone in 11.10, you can find it instead in the
dash (I think you can in 11.04 as well) by searching for system settings, or by
choosing from the categories (similar to the old top level Main menu, i.e.
games, internet, media, office, &c.) that drop down at the right hand side of
the dash.

It all depends on what she meant. If she is just missing the settings they
are there. But if she is missing the panel then that leads to the solutions
I suggested. I understood that she meant the panel and menus themselves,
but it is unclear.

Unity is quite configurable. But you need to add either gconf editor for
Unity 2 or Compiz Config Settings Manager (ccsm) for 3D. They are not
installed by default. You can also add Gnome-tweak-Tool for GNOME Shell.

That's odd, System Settings is there on my 11.10.

You're right. But it's moved from the bottom (11.04) of the menu to the top,
that's what foxed me

System settings are there but they are limited in terms of what they can
do. You need CCSM to set the number of workspaces, desktop effects, add
grab handles etc. The basic setup is workable without CCSM, but it is
locked down. Canonical wants to lock it down but users have demanded that
it be opened up. Similarly in Unity 2D you need gconf editor to change the
basic setup. In GNOME Shell you need Gnome-tweak-tool.

I am in Fedora with OTB GNOME Shell and cannot check all of what CCSM does
at the moment.

Thank you all for your helpful suggestions. Indeed, I meant the top panel
and the old Preferences and Administration menus.

I have several problems with Unity, some of which I admit, may be due to my
own ignorance. First, I have a LOT of applications in each of many
sub-menus. Wasting my limited desktop with buttons on the left I do not
need is irritating. Making me search for my apps is frustrating.

Someone in another thread described how to find gnome-terminal in Unity and
it was laughable. Not his description but the fact that he was correct. One
of the reasons I disliked the original Mac OS was the total lack of a
command line. The fact that the command line in Windoze is so pathetic is
the main reason besides $ that I don't like it. Now it seems to me that
Ubuntu is trying to move away from what makes U**x U**X; the ability to use
powerful GUIs and a powerful command line.

I think the classic Gnome desktop was the best of both worlds -- easy
access to anything GUI on the system and equally easy access to CL stuff
via the terminal. What is left is still pretty good and I have gotten back
most of the old functionality but I fear for the future.

You can drag icons from Dash to the launcher where they will always be at
your fingertips and you can rearrange items in the launcher. The Launcher
should hide away when you are working and not take up real estate. You can
also learn the hot keys to bring things up more quickly. There is an
investment that we all make in computing. It varies with the person and
their needs. We all need to know the basics so that we can get things done
and some will go further to tinker and customize the desktop environment to
make it their own. This takes times, but it can payoff with learning to do
things faster and the skills are transferable. I am not suggesting that
users should have to do this, just that playing around and even messing
things up occasionally is not a bad idea. That is one way to learn. Most
mistakes are not big and are reversible.

However, I agree with what you are saying Unity is more work than it needs
to be. I find GNOME shell to be much the same. You need to cover more
ground than you do on a traditional desktop. That being said they are
interesting ideas and I find that those should be explored. And they will
both improve over time.

I think that these conversations will seem silly in a year or two. We are
experiencing the growing pains that comes with learning something new. Once
we get good at it we can look back at laugh at ourselves for thinking it
hard. But, nobody needs to go through this change.

There are ways around it and they should be explored too. I would start by
installing one alternative desktop environment and playing with it too,
such as Kubuntu or Xubuntu. Who knows maybe you will surprise yourself and
just find what you are looking for? Keep Unity around to play around with
from time to time. I don't think that it is going to go away. It will take
about five minutes to install Kubuntu and a bit less for Xubuntu. Use the
Software Center or Synaptic. Search for kubuntu-desktop or xubuntu-desktop.
Install. Logout and switch the session to KDE Plasma (whatever it is called
in the menu) or XFCE or Xubuntu. Logon and you will be in another world.
Both will look familiar but different. They will work as a traditional
desktop environment but not the same as GNOME classic. You
can customize either by moving the panel to the top, change wallpaper, add
and subtract things, move things around, etc. And all of your favourite
GNOME apps will work!

It's all in the learning...............