Gnome panels on external monitor

The new monitor works very well, but some things aren't great. The fact that it's a rectangle (and there is invisible space above the laptop top panel is one. But I'll adjust to that.

I did need panels on the external monitor though. It's not convenient to have tasks on both monitors over on the laptop panel since I couldn't get a panel on the external monitor.

Then I found several solutions at answers.launchpad.net.

I used the gconf-editor solution. But after reading downward, I learned about the Alt-drag trick. That works too, and is much simpler. To put a panel on the second monitor, just create it first (it'll go on the first monitor). Then press Alt and click and drag the panel to the other monitor.

Services not coming up

After a recent package update on my work computer (AMD64), services were not being started on boot (no apache, ssh, etc). Strangely enough, gdm *does* start, so I get to log in to gnome.

runlevel says "unknown" though.

A bit of googling points to this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/upstart/+bug/497299

and also https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/upstart/+bug/461725

I don't understand the whole thing. There seems to be a race condition when init tasks run in parallel. And also bugs in updating /etc/network/interfaces.

It's fixed for me by forcing upstart to the previous version (0.6.3-10). I then pinned that. If a 0.6.3-12 version comes up I may download it and test. Or maybe I won't, since 0.6.3-10 works and I doubt if newer versions in karmic will actually give me much reason to upgrade.

[Update]
Sol's laptop (upgraded to karmic the other day) has the same problem. I'll fix it the same way tonight (can't ssh into it since the services didn't start :-).

[Update]
boy, upstart-0.6.3-11 officially sucks. I updated the toshiba laptop and had the same problem. The Durabook is fine though. That's three computers out of four. Might become four out of five after I upgrade sol's desktop at work to karmic.