Unity - the Canonical-supported desktop environment that brought Ubuntu to the limelight in the general public.
It was sexy, easy to use, and had all the benefits of flashy proprietary operating systems, but it came equipped with the freedom of the free software world and the dream of convergence -- the ability to use the same OS on multiple devices. It was a dream come true. Then, in the Spring of 2017, Canonical dropped the bomb that they would cease (for business reasons) their support, and for most of 2017, Unity fans began to move to other Ubuntu variants to have a more certain support future. But their hearts remained with Unity. Then, in a sudden surprise side-attack, the UBports community appeared with the announcement of an installable version of Unity ("Unity8"), complete with 18.04 Bionic Beaver support (and of course 16.04 support)!
*EDIT MARCH 7, 2018: Unfortunately, as a result of the information in this link, Unity8 will not work in 18.04 for the foreseeable future. Our apologies and stay tuned while development continues.
It was sexy, easy to use, and had all the benefits of flashy proprietary operating systems, but it came equipped with the freedom of the free software world and the dream of convergence -- the ability to use the same OS on multiple devices. It was a dream come true. Then, in the Spring of 2017, Canonical dropped the bomb that they would cease (for business reasons) their support, and for most of 2017, Unity fans began to move to other Ubuntu variants to have a more certain support future. But their hearts remained with Unity. Then, in a sudden surprise side-attack, the UBports community appeared with the announcement of an installable version of Unity ("Unity8"), complete with 18.04 Bionic Beaver support (and of course 16.04 support)!
*EDIT MARCH 7, 2018: Unfortunately, as a result of the information in this link, Unity8 will not work in 18.04 for the foreseeable future. Our apologies and stay tuned while development continues.
What works and what doesn't
While you may be just as eager to install Unity8, keep the following in mind:
Overall, Unity8 is nice and buttery smooth. Sleek looks and sharp design is all on the table. These, however are not (yet) working:
- Proper functionality out of the box (some things things are still broken)
- Use with proprietary video drivers (looking at you, NVidia!)
As with such a fresh launch, a few bugs are to be expected, and Unity8 is still in heavy development but things are getting better hourly so stay tuned to witness the rapid improvements.
How do I install Unity8?
Installation of Unity8 on 16.04 Xenial and 18.04 Bionic is easy: just one command!
Cautionary note from the wise: Before beginning, it is recommended to try this in a Virtual Machine. That way, if anything goes wrong, it won't affect your main OS.
1. Enter the following command into a terminal window, enter your sudo password, and watch the magic happen:
bash <(wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ubports/unity8-desktop-install-tools/master/install.sh)2. Once it's done, restart your PC or VM (if you followed the cautionary advice above), and select the Unity8 session (click the logo that appear next to your name).
And you're done! Explore Unity8, report bugs, or even help with development by joining the UBports Unity8 Development Community Team !
You can find the github to the desktop install tools here: https://github.com/ubports/unity8-desktop-install-tools and the Unity8 code here: https://github.com/ubports/unity8