One of the problems we reported after installing Ubuntu 11.04 “Natty Narwhal” is that the Zoom feature stopped working. We use zoom daily in teaching as it allows us to magnify the five foot monitors at the front of our classroom so the students can see the small items, such as menu selections, and follow what we are instructing them to do. The loss of the ability to zoom would mean the students would have to get up out of their seats and walk to the front of the room.

The closest fix I have found so far was found here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/36751/how-to-activate-superscroll-to-zoom and in a nutshell, the fix is to install CCSm like so:

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Then run CCSM from System / Preferences / CompizConfig Settings Manager. The needed item is located in the Accessibility group and it is called Enhanced Zoom Desktop. There is also a Magnify and a Zoom Desktop item, which is not the one. Click the box to enable it, then click the item to open a tabbed notebook with detailed configuration. On the Mouse Behavior tab set the Zoom Mode to Pan Area. It begins working immediately. The post says:

Download CCSM. Either search the software centre or pump this into a terminal.

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Run it. Whack ccsm into a run dialogue.
Under the “Enhanced Zoom Desktop” plugin, look at the “Zoom In/Out” tab. You want to alter the gestures so that you have something like the following:

Zoom in: <Super>Button4
Zoom out: <Super>Button5
Zoom box: <Super>Button2

That should return things to how they were. You should have a look at the other tabs too because they have improved some of the features. I’ve fallen for the panning mode.

The only drawback so far is that some parts of the desktop supposedly will not zoom in Unity.