How to install Unity in Ubuntu 18.04

Since Canonical has dropped Unity with Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver and switched to GNOME as default desktop environment, there is a mix response from its users. Some believe this is for better since Unity is always resource hungry. However, others feel it was Unity which had made Ubuntu stand different to other Linux distributions.

I am in the later category. The reason I use Ubuntu as primary OS is because of the ease of use of Unity. The dash search has propagated in my life and GNOME environment looks alien to me. I had installed Ubuntu 18.04 in VirtualBox to try the GNOME desktop and wanted to switch back to Unity after a day! After all, if I want GNOME, I can always install it with a simple terminal command; why to make it default when Unity is your exclusive desktop environment. 

There is a good news though. Unity's development will continue and you can easily install Unity in Ubuntu 18.04. 

In this article, we will see how to install Unity in Ubuntu 18.04. 

Installing Unity 7 in Ubuntu 18.04

Unity 7 is not the latest one, however if you want none other than Unity 7, open a terminal and type in the below command : 

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:unity7maintainers/unity7-desktop 

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-unity-desktop

During installation, choose lightdm as your default display manager. Reboot to login to Unity.

Installing Unity 8 in Ubuntu 18.04

If you want the latest of Unity, you can install Unity 8 in Ubuntu 18.04 with below command : 

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install unity

This will install Unity in your system. 

Now, to switch to Unity Desktop Environment, reboot your system and on the login screen, click on the button to display the available desktop environments.

Choose Unity and you will login to it. 

Let me know in the comments if you face any issue while installing Unity in Ubuntu 18.04.