For the new Unity 7 low graphics mode, Ubuntu will soon made it easy to enable or disable this feature using unity-control-center (System Settings -> Appearance -> Behavior). The desktop team improved the Unity 7 low graphics mode a few months ago by reducing the amount of visual effects that are seen while running in low gfx. Now a toggle ...

For those running Ubuntu Desktop in a virtualised environment, or a Ubuntu computer is being controlled remotely over VNC, RDP etc, Low Graphics Mode can be enabled to reduce the overhead and speed up the user’s experience. Ubuntu 7 has a low graphics mode for a long time, it reduces the amount of visual effects: Reducing the amount of animation ...