You're right, the height is correct but the position of the window is underneath the Unity bar. This is almost certainly a bug in Unity, not in Octave, since Octave is setting the right height, and I have not seen this happen in other desktop environments.
This may be the same as bug #1166132. Reassigning to unity. ** Package changed: octave (Ubuntu) => unity (Ubuntu) -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of DX Packages, which is subscribed to unity in Ubuntu. Matching subscriptions: dx-packages https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1326866 Title: No menu bar ! Status in “unity” package in Ubuntu: Incomplete Bug description: Not sure where to report this, but there are some odd "Ubuntu issues with many apps". I invoked Ubuntu-bug on "octave" since its the most recent app I've tried that has this issue, but changed the package to "I don't know" in the web bug-interface. 1 - Applications often start with no menu/title bar. They are not maximized. Sometimes changing the size of the window by dragging a window edge will give me a title bar. 2 - Even when a title bar is visible, it may only show the title and the menus won't open. I click around like mad and eventually the menu may start working. Its very intermittent. 3 - Tear-off menus never work. This has been reported seperately for Gimp. When the menus are torn off, they don't work anymore. Gvim used to have tear-off menus, but I can't find out where to turn them on! Gnome-tweak tool (and other gnome apps have a transparent background making them very tough to use). Sorry these are all posted in one spot, but I think they are related. If I'm wrong - I'll try posting them seperately, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one having these problems! ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04 Package: octave 3.8.1-1ubuntu1 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-29.52-lowlatency 3.13.11.2 Uname: Linux 3.13.0-29-lowlatency x86_64 ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.2 Architecture: amd64 CurrentDesktop: Unity Date: Thu Jun 5 10:49:13 2014 InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-05-25 (11 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64+mac (20140417) SourcePackage: octave UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1326866/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~dx-packages Post to : dx-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~dx-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp