Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

Unity 2D No Longer Installed By Default, Removed From The Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal Repositories

| Date: August 15, 2012 | View Comments | Tags: linux, Quantal Quetzal, ubuntu, unity, unity 2D


According to the latest "ubuntu-meta" package update from the Ubuntu Quantal Quetzal repositories, Unity 2D will no longer be installed by default in Ubuntu 12.10, and Unity 2D users are being transitioned to the Unity 3D session, just like it was discussed at UDS-Q.

Further more, the latest Unity package, uploaded to the Ubuntu Quantal repositories a few hours ago, uses a "dummy" Unity-2D package, so Unity 2D is no longer available in the repositories and won't be installable at all in Quantal.

Ubuntu users without graphical acceleration will be able to use Unity 3D thanks to llvmpipe, so there will be no fallback session anymore and Unity will look the same for all users.

HUD Is Now Available For Unity 2D Too [Ubuntu 12.04]

| Date: March 02, 2012 | View Comments | Tags: hud, linux, Precise Pangolin, ubuntu, unity, unity 2D

HUD menu unity 2D ubuntu 12.04

HUD was added by default in Ubuntu 12.04, but only for Unity 3D (with Compiz) and since feature freeze has passed, it seemed HUD wasn't going to be available for Unity 2D. But a feature freeze exception was made and Unity 2D now includes HUD.

Things To Tweak After Installing Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot

| Date: October 13, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: fix, gnome shell, linux, tips n tricks, ubuntu, unity, unity 2D

Tux

Update: for Ubuntu 12.04, see: Things To Tweak After Installing Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

Back when Ubuntu 11.04 was released, we wrote a post about stuff you may need to tweak or fix. Some of those tweaks still work but since this is a new version, there are new things that need tweaking so I've decided to make a new post with some popular old tweaks as well as some new ones.

Read on!

A Cool Dock For GNOME Shell: Unity 2D Launcher

| Date: July 08, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: dock, gnome 3, gnome shell, launcher, linux, ubuntu, unity, unity 2D

Unity 2D GNOME Shell

There's a new cool dock in town and it works perfectly with GNOME Shell. Actually, it's not new and you've seen it in lots of screenshots or you may even use it already but maybe you didn't know that you don't have to run Unity 2D to use it: the Unity 2D Launcher.

New Unity 2D Design On The Way (Video)

| Date: February 24, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: 11.04, linux, Natty Narwhal, ubuntu, unity, unity 2D

Unity 2D (Qt) is finally getting closer in design to the regular Unity. Check out this video recorded by by om26er:



The changes you can see in the above video are not yet available in the Unity 2D PPA, but expect it to land soon.


Thanks to Gaurav for the tip; video thanks to om26er

Unity 2D Gets A Workspace Switcher Too

| Date: February 11, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: 11.04, linux, Natty Narwhal, qt, ubuntu, unity, unity 2D

Unity 2D workspace switcher

The default Unity ("Unity 3D") has a cool workspace switcher that wasn't available in Unity 2D (Qt) until last night's updates. Check out the video below to see it in action:

Run Unity Qt Panel Or Launcher In A Classic GNOME Desktop

| Date: January 17, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: gnome, linux, ubuntu, unity, unity 2D

WebuUpd8 reader Anurag sent us a very interesting tip: you can run any part of Unity 2D (Qt) under the classic GNOME desktop. To use the Unity panel or launcher without the whole Unity Qt, you firstly have to install Unity Qt (2D).

Unity QT launcher
(Unity Qt launcher)

Once you've installed Unity Qt, you can launch either the Unity launcher or panel manually, under GNOME. For instance you can press ALT + F2 and enter "unity-2d-launcher" to get the Unity 2D launcher ("dock") which you can use to access the application and file places. If you only want to use the Unity launcher, you won't have a button to leave the application/file places (Dash) but you can press ALT + TAB and it will close.

How To Install Unity 2D (Qt) In Ubuntu 11.04 / 10.10

| Date: January 14, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: 11.04, linux, Natty Narwhal, ubuntu, unity, unity 2D

Unity 2D Qt

Unity 2D (the package is called "Unity-Qt") got an Ubuntu PPA a few minutes ago and it can now easily be installed in Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.04. 

I've tried Unity Qt in VirtualBox and I must say I am impressed: it's not identical to Unity 3D but it's A LOT faster! Further more, because Unity 2D seems to have more elements from Ubuntu 10.10 then 11.04 (even though some new stuff from 11.04 is there), it already has Dash (the application launcher / file browser) - something that's currently missing in Unity 3D in Ubuntu 11.04.


Here is a quick video I've recorded with Unity 2D (Qt) in action:

2D Unity To Be Available As An Option In Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal [Screenshots]

| Date: January 14, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: 11.04, linux, Natty Narwhal, ubuntu, unity, unity 2D

"Does Natty's Unity require proprietary graphics card drivers?" was a question posted on AskUbuntu and who better to answer this question then Mark Suttleworth himself (who apparently is quite an active AskUbuntu user)? Mark answered that there will be a a 2D implementation of Unity, available in 11.04 as an option and posted a link to further info and screenshots but unfortunately the link cannot be accessed anymore (update: the post has been restored).


Thanks to Google Reader which caches all the posts (and to Bill Filler who initially posted them), here are some Unity 2D screenshots:

Quick list and integrated window controls in panel:

2D Unity desktop

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