What is linux unity desktop

Unity Explained: A Look at Ubuntu’s Default Desktop Environment

If you’re switching to Linux from Windows, you might choose Ubuntu. But despite it’s versatility, Ubuntu comes with an unusual desktop environment, Unity. Don’t be discouraged: it’s simple to use!

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Ubuntu is the most well-known version of Linux around. It’s how millions of people have discovered Linux for the first time, and continues to draw new users into the world of open source operating systems. So the interface Ubuntu uses is one many people are going to see.

In this area, Ubuntu is unique. Even as a new user, rarely will you confuse the default Ubuntu desktop for something else. That’s because Ubuntu has its own interface that you can — but probably won’t — find anywhere else. It’s called Unity.

Unity Is a Desktop Environment

A desktop environment is what you see on your screen. It’s the panel that displays information, enables you to launch apps, and lets you switch from one window to another.

Unity is one of many desktop environments available for free and open source desktops like Linux. This can seem strange if you’re moving over from Windows or macOS, which each only have one.

Since Windows comes from one company, we refer to the entire project as a single thing. No single company or organization manages Linux. Instead, the operating system is put together using components from many contributors. There are many ways to go about displaying information on your screen, and Unity is Ubuntu’s default way for doing so.

A History of Unity

Many users, complaining of instability and the lack of options, considered Unity to have launched before it was fully ready. By Ubuntu 12.04, Canonical had ironed out many of the kinks. Thing is, Unity hasn’t changed all that much since then, and it’s been over four years. Now we’re at Ubuntu 16.10, and it’s unclear when the situation is going to change.

How Unity Works

Unity is a little different to the standard desktop environment. It has a dock along the left side of the screen and a panel across the top. You can open or switch to an app by clicking on its icon. Other software is available through the Dash, which you open with the Ubuntu logo in the dock. Drag apps from the Dash to the dock to pin them as favorites. Drag them off to remove them.

The Dash contains scopes and lenses, which provide quick ways to search your computer or the web for files or data. You can play an album without opening a music app first, ask Wikipedia for the capital of Peru, load up your most recent photos — that sort of thing.

Unity is meant to be simple, so there isn’t much complexity compared to desktop environments like KDE. But you do have a few options such as hiding the dock, changing the theme, and moving the menu around.

One of Unity’s strengths is how much you can do via keyboard shortcuts. Open any app on the dock by pressing Ctrl + number. Navigate the app’s menubar by pressing Super (Windows key) and typing instead. You can launch apps and enter commands the same way.

A window displaying shortcuts appears the first time you start your Unity desktop, which is a nice touch.

Downsides to Unity

Unity isn’t for everyone. Many dislike Unity’s relative lack of customization. Moving the dock requires you to enter a line of code, and tweaking more than that requires installing additional software. Even with an app like Unity Tweak Tool, there are many aspects of the interface that you simply can’t tweak.

Nor is Unity the most stable desktop environment. Some would say Canonical’s project has always been a buggy mess. Others would say it was stable for a time, but more bugs have snuck in as the company’s priorities have shifted to Ubuntu Touch and mobile devices.

Canonical didn’t make apps for Unity. To create visual consistency between software, Canonical wrote patches for existing software instead. But this isn’t always an option, so the default Unity desktop provides inconsistent scrollbars and menubars across a few programs.

For what it’s worth, Unity 8 (when it does eventually arrive) will come with some of its own apps.

If you like Unity, you don’t have to use Ubuntu, but that is where you will have the best experience. Canonical invites others to port Unity to whichever distro they want, but the company doesn’t help them do so. As a result, installing Unity in openSUSE or Arch Linux isn’t as easy as other desktop environments, and you’re likely to encounter bugs.

Who Should Use Unity?

Unity’s strength comes from its number of users. Despite a growing population, desktop Linux is relatively obscure compared to Windows and macOS. But Ubuntu is well-supported enough that it’s easy to find software and help online when stuff goes wrong. For newcomers to Linux, this broader community is a big plus.

Ubuntu isn’t necessarily the most polished distro, but it does have a commercial feel. Unity is a product — albeit a free one — that is recognizable and consistent. This has real-world value, even if some users find this limiting. At this point, it’s a big part of the Ubuntu brand.

Have you used Unity? What did you like? What didn’t you like? Do you swap it out for another desktop environment, and if so, which one? Share your opinion with us in a comment!

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Ubuntu Unity 22.04 is a Linux desktop distribution that’s as productive as it is elegant

Ubuntu Unity 22.04 is out, and it’s better than ever. This throwback to the glory days of Canonical’s in-house desktop might easily usurp your daily driver as your Linux distribution of choice.

I have a confession to make. Back when Canonical created its own desktop called Unity, I felt it was, hands down, the best desktop environment on the market. Not only was it beautifully designed, but it was also one of the most efficient and productive UIs available. With the Head-Up Display, powerful search, and highly configurable dashboard, I was able to work with a level of efficiency I had yet to experience.

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But then Canonical did the unthinkable and jettisoned that desktop (and all the work the developers put into it) and returned to GNOME. Ever since, I’ve felt Canonical made a big mistake by scrapping Unity. Fortunately, since this is open-source, a fork of the Unity Desktop was given birth in the form of a complete distribution (called Ubuntu Unity) and is still in active development. Although it’s not quite the same Unity as was found back in its Canonical heyday (no HUD connected to application menus), it’s still a fantastic desktop.

Let’s take a look at what Ubuntu Unity 22.04 has in store for you.

First, you can download the ISO for Ubuntu Unity from the official download page. I highly recommend deploying this as a virtual machine at first. If the distribution serves your needs, you can then install it on bare metal and enjoy the Unity desktop as your daily driver.

My first impressions of Ubuntu Unity 22.04

Upon installing and logging into Ubuntu Unity for the first time, my immediate impression is that of nostalgia. Other than the color scheme and the wallpaper, this looks exactly like the Ubuntu Desktop of old that I loved so much (Figure A).

This impression really hits home the second you click the menu button at the top left corner. Once the Dash is open (Figure B), you’ll see what looks almost exactly like Unity when it was enjoying its heyday.

One thing I appreciated about the Unity Dash is that it allowed me to get very granular with my searching. You could enable/disable different categories and sources for your searches. If you only want to search for applications, make sure Applications is the only option selected under Categories. If you want to search for only Files & Folders … ditto.

That’s not to say everything works perfectly. Just like back with the original Unity, sometimes the search simply won’t find files on your system. If I recall (back in the day) the problem with this issue had to do with Zeitgeist and whether you’d actually opened a file. Here’s an illustration:

1. Open a terminal window and issue the command touch ~/Documents/TechRepublic.
2. Close the terminal window.
3. Open the Dash and search for the TechRepublic file.

The search results will come up with nothing. However, do the following:

1. Open LibreOffice.
2. Open the TechRepublic file.
3. Add some text to the file.
4. Save the file in the ODT format.
5. Close the file.

Now, when you search for the TechRepublic file in the Dash, it’ll appear in the results (Figure C).

This was just one aspect of why Unity was such an efficient desktop. Of course, it’s not like other desktops don’t include such features, but Unity just always did it better (and looked better doing it). Fortunately, Ubuntu Unity nailed this feature.

The missing piece

The one feature of Ubuntu Unity that I loved was the HUD (Head-Up Display). Effectively, what this did was integrate application menus into the Dash such that you could (while an app was open) hit the Super key (aka the “Windows” key) and then search the app menus. For example, you have LibreOffice open, and you want to center a line of text. Instead of selecting the text, and then clicking Format | Align | Center, you could select the text, hit the Super key, type Center, and hit Enter and the text would be centered. This makes it quite efficient, especially when an application had a large menu system that made it challenging to find what you needed.

Unfortunately, not every application took advantage of this feature, and it looks like Ubuntu Unity has not integrated the HUD with application menus. That’s a shame because it was the absolute best feature in the original Unity.

Even so, Ubuntu Unity has included the global menu feature, which means application menus are found in the top bar and not in the actual app window (in a similar fashion to how macOS handles global menus).

App switch

One of the things the developers have done is switch out a few of the default GNOME apps for those that better fit the Unity UI. That list includes the following:

• Document Viewer–switched with Atril
• Text Editor–switched with Pluma
• Video Player–switched with VLC
• Image Viewer–switched with EOM
• System Monitor–switched with MATE System Monitor

Other than that, the OS includes (out of the box) the likes of:

• LibreOffice 7.3.2.2
• Firefox 99.0.1
• Eye of Mate
• Document Scanner
• Disk Usage Analyzer
• Remmina Remote Desktop Client
• Thunderbird
• Unity Tweak Tool

And, of course, you can always install from thousands of applications using the included GNOME Software.

Who Ubuntu Unity is for?

Anyone who enjoyed what Canonical was doing with the Ubuntu desktop, before it jumped ship back to GNOME, will vastly appreciate what the developers behind this distribution are doing. If you like a desktop that very much creates an efficient and elegant workflow, this might become your go-to Linux distribution.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I believe Ubuntu Unity is one of the most beautiful Linux desktops on the market. If the developers could only bring back the full HUD, I could see myself replacing Pop!_OS as my distribution of choice.

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