Global Menu is the globally-shared menu bar of all applications launched in your desktop session. I was fascinated by this panel applet first time I saw it, I was really wishing for this type of menu although most of us find it confusing but for some reasons mac users got along with it just fine. Global Menu will only work on Native GNome Applications, this means this don’t work on Firefox 3 and some other Applications.

screen2

Here’s a good view of my current Desktop.

And here’s how I installed it on my Ubuntu 8.10, make sure you have root access:
Based on: ayoli’s guide and http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/wiki/BuildFromSourceOnUbuntu

Prerequisites:

Get the required packages to build vala and gnome-globalmenu : Open a Terminal (Applications >> Accessories >> Terminal)

sudo apt-get install build-essential flex bison gnome-common libglib2.0-dev gtk-doc-tools autoconf2.13 automake1.9 libgtk2.0-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libwnck-dev libpanel-applet2-dev libgnome-menu-dev libnotify-dev

You have two methods to get vala. Either 1a or 1b. If you’ve installed Vala before by compiling it, make sure to do 1a and 1b before going to Step 2 (to be able to remove all traces of a previous manual Vala install) I prefered Step 1b.
Step 1a: Install Vala from the PPA Repository

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bruce89/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

Step 1b: Obtain the Source for Vala 0.5.5

cd ~/
wget -c http://download.gnome.org/sources/vala/0.5/vala-0.5.5.tar.bz2
tar xjvf vala-0.5.5.tar.bz2
cd vala-0.5.5/

Step 2: Make sure that no older version of vala is installed
If you’re using the source version, make sure that no prior version is installed as a deb by typing

sudo dpkg-query --list |grep vala

If older version exists then remove it:

sudo apt-get remove vala

Make sure that no source install older than 0.5.5 is on your system. As you’re in the Vala directory you’ve just downloaded, just type:

sudo make uninstall

You can check which version of Vala is installed by typing:

valac --version

Step 3: Configure and Compile Vala

./configure
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

You can check that Vala 0.5.5 is installed and that you ready to go on by typing:

valac --version

Step 4: Obtain the Source for GlobalMenu
Download GlobalMenu

cd ~/
svn checkout http://gnome2-globalmenu.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ gnome-globalmenu-0.7
cd gnome-globalmenu-0.7

Step 5: Configure and Compile GlobalMenu

./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install

Step 6: Remove an obsolete line if you used GlobalMenu before
If you had globalmenu before and have this line in your ~/.gnomerc or ~/.profile : remove it

export GTK_MODULES=globalmenu-gnome

Step 7: Add the GlobalMenu to your panel and enable it

  1. Right click on an empty part of your panel
  2. choose “Add to pane” from the popup menu
  3. Scroll down until you see “Global Menu Panel Applet”
  4. Select it and click “add” (or drag and drop it on the panel)
  5. GlobalMenu can now be enabled via the preferences dialog of the applet.
  6. Right Click on the applet
  7. Choose preferences

Check the first option : “Enable Global Menu For GTK Applications”.
Step 8: Enjoy

Extras:

I found another a deb installer somewhere in the wiki page of Global Menu Project Site.

You can get the deb installer copy here: http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/wiki/Installation scroll down to the comments portion. note that the version in deb is 0.7.1.

I also saved a copy you can get it here: gnome-globalmenu_071-1fc10_i386
 (download at your own risk)