Comment 49 for bug 1239710

If by "right side desktop icons" you mean the clock, shutdown gear icon, etc., in the top status bar, the workaround I use is gnome. On the login screen you can change your windows manager to gnome or gnome-flashback. It could be that when you first login you're still stuck with the ubuntu default. But if you reboot and login again, you should have gnome which will at least give you the shutdown button and the time.

It's not that gnome is great. But at least I get the clock display and I don't have to call up a terminal window to shutdown.