Install Unity 2D on Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick) [How To]

In one of our earlier articles, we shared a good news for Ubuntu 10.10 “Maverick” users who wants to get Unity 2D without upgrading to the latest Ubuntu 11.04 version.

Unity 2D is basically a desktop shell developed for hardware platforms that don’t support Unity’s OpenGL requirements. In other words, it’s developed for Ubuntu systems having less hardware resources.

2D’s architecture is very close to that of the original Unity desktop shell since it shares the same backend components, except that it replaces the user interface elements. The user interface elements which gets replaced in this strip down version of the desktop shell are the panel, launcher and places components. Moreover, it uses a tweaked version of Metacity instead of Compiz as its window manager.

You can follow any one of the two ways described below to install Unity 2D on your Ubuntu 10.10 “Maverick” build.

1. Install using Adi Roban’s PPA (more information about this PPA is available here):

Open a new terminal window and type the following commands, pressing Enter after each command. You will be once asked to give your sudo password, which is nothing but your Ubuntu’s login password for your account.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:adiroiban/unity-2d-maverick
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unity-2d

2. Install using Ubuntu’s own PPA:

Open a new terminal window and type the following commands, pressing Enter after each command. You will be asked once to give your sudo password, which is nothing but your Ubuntu’s login password for your account.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:unity-2d-team/unity-2d-daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unity-2d

Note: Use any one of the above method, do not use both of them.

One last step before activating Unity 2D as your default desktop shell:

After Unity 2D installation is completed, follow the steps below to activate Unity 2D as the default desktop shell for your Ubuntu account.

  1. First, log out of your Ubuntu account
  2. Now, during logging back in again, don’t forget to choose “Unity 2D” session in the drop-down menu, present at the bottom center of the login screen
  3. Congratulations, if you have performed the above steps carefully, your Ubuntu account should be running Unity 2D. :)

If you need any kind of help about the installation procedure, comment below, we will help you out.

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