Unity is a desktop shell for the GNOME desktop environment formerly developed by Canonical Ltd for Ubuntu. It is now maintained by the Ubuntu Unity Team. Unity is implemented as a plugin of the Compiz window manager.
Not to be confused with Unity3D.
Installation
Install unity-meta from the arch-unity repository and enable LightDM.
Tips and tricks
Customize LightDM wallpaper and appearance
See LightDM#Changing background images/colors.
Autostart programs on login
See GNOME#Autostart.
Troubleshooting
Cannot right click on desktop
Other issues that this fix addresses:
- Title bar at the top doesn't display Arch Linux Desktop
- Shortcut keys, such as
Super
andAlt
do not work when there are no active windows
Execute the following: gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons true
Unity stops working after update
Run compiz.reset
and then log out and log back into the Unity session.
If Unity still is not working, report an issue on github or discuss it in this forum thread on the Arch Linux Forums.
Some GTK themes look ugly since GNOME 3.6
This affects the unity default theme and light themes. Use:
~/.config/gtk3.0/gtk.css
GtkLabel { background-color: @transparent; }
Workspace switcher widget disappeared
In ccsm (the Compiz Configuration Settings Manager), ensure that the following option is checked: Settings > Appearance > Behaviour > Enable workspaces.
No skype or other applications appear in indicator tray
Using Skype as an example;
Append Skype to the systray-whitelist
list in com.canonical.Unity.Panel
using dconf-editor or the gsettings command.
Reboot or logout afterwards.
Alternatively, replace the contents of systray-whitelist
with all.
Known issues
See Gitlab Issues for known problems.