How To Reset Compiz And Unity In Ubuntu 12.10 Or 13.04

In Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.10, Compiz (and Unity) are using Gsettings instead of Gconf and because of this, the "unity --reset" command used to reset Unity in previous Ubuntu versions doesn't work anymore. In case some settings are messed up and you want to reset Unity and Compiz to their default settings, here's a new way of doing this that works with Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal and 13.04 Raring Ringtail.

Reset Unity & Compiz in Ubuntu 12.10 or 13.04

The first method is using a tool that tries to replicate the old "unity --reset" behaviour. Add the PPA and install it in Ubuntu 12.10 using the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:amith/ubuntutools
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unity-reset

The above PPA doesn't yet have packages for Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail, but you can manually download and install the Ubuntu Quantal deb in Raring - download it from HERE.

Or get the script from HERE.

Then, reset Unity using the following command:

unity-reset

The instructions above are preferred to reset Unity in Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.04! The second method might not work in all cases but it can be used if you don't want to add a PPA or the above method doesn't work for you.

Firstly, install dconf-tools:

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

Since Compiz in Ubuntu 13.04 and 12.10 is using Gsettings (dconf), you can reset Compiz and Unity using the following command:

dconf reset -f /org/compiz/

The old "unity --reset" command used to restart Unity too, while the command above doesn't. So to restart Unity after running the above command, use:

setsid unity

You can also run the following command to see the Compiz settings you have:

dconf dump /org/compiz/

And a final note: the old "unity --reset-icons" command which resets the Unity Launcher icons to default still works with Ubuntu 13.04 and 12.10.

first method thanks to foss.freedom; second method via Jeremy Bicha