Unity-for-Arch

This project is a port of the Ubuntu Unity desktop and most of its features to Arch Linux. Please see the Arch Wiki for more information.

Installation from binary repositories

Per Chenxiaolong (see his comment here: chenxiaolong#232), the binary repos are no longer being maintained. Building from source is the only available option at this time.

Thanks

• thn81
• L42y
• City-Busz
• All of the other AUR maintainers that helped make it possible to run Unity under Arch Linux

Compiling from source

2/19/2017- I have removed appmenu-qt from the build order because it is failing to build and I have seen no difference in Unity without the package. Once a workaround/fix is applied, I will reintroduce it into the build order.

Libindicate and Libindicate-qt are optional packages. Neither have been updated on Launchpad for quite some time, and based on research, the indicator-messages have taken over their duties. If you find that you need these packages, they are included in the repo for you.

Please make sure you don't already have modified versions of the dependencies installed. For example, gtk3-ubuntu might fail to compile if there's a modified version of gtk3 already installed.

Packages ending with "-ubuntu" contain Ubuntu patches and REPLACE Arch Linux versions of those packages.

To compile from source, just build all of the packages in the following order:

Package	Description
cmake-extras	Extra CMake utility modules
dbus-activation-env	Push session env vars to dbus/systemd
gtk2-ubuntu	GTK toolkit 2.0 with Ubuntu's patches
gtk3-ubuntu	GTK toolkit 3.0 with Ubuntu's patches
libdbusmenu-ubuntu	Library for passing menus over DBus
ido-ubuntu	Widgets and objects used for indicators
libindicator-ubuntu	Symbols and functions for indicators
libindicate OPTIONAL	Libraries to raise 'flags' on DBus
libindicate-qt OPTIONAL	Qt 4 bindings for libindicate
libappindicator-ubuntu	Library to export menu bar to Unity
unity-gtk-module	Application menu module for GTK+
dee-ubuntu	Model to synchronize instances over DBus
libunity	Library for integrating with Unity
libunity-misc	Differently licensed stuff for Unity
indicator-messages	Collects messages that need a response
bamf-ubuntu	Application matching framework
libtimezonemap	GTK+3 timezone map widget
gsettings-desktop-schemas-ubuntu	Shared GSettings schemas for the desktop
gsettings-ubuntu-schemas	GSettings desktop-wide schemas for Ubuntu
gnome-settings-daemon-ubuntu	Daemon handling the GNOME session settings
gnome-session-ubuntu	GNOME Session Manager
gnome-screensaver-ubuntu	GNOME screen saver and locker
unity-settings-daemon	Daemon handling the Unity session settings
libgeonames	Library for parsing the geonames.org DB
unity-control-center	Utilities to configure the Unity desktop
properties-cpp	C++11 library providing properties/signals
lightdm-ubuntu	Cross-desktop lightweight display manager
unity-api	API for Unity shell integration
indicator-application	Takes menus and puts them in the panel
indicator-appmenu	Indicator to host the menus from apps
indicator-datetime	Indicator to show the date and time
indicator-keyboard	Indicator to show kb. layout/input method
indicator-power	Indicator to show battery information
indicator-printers	Indicator to show active print jobs
indicator-session	Indicator for session management
indicator-sound	Indicator to show a unified sound menu
gsettings-qt	Library to access GSettings from Qt
dee-qt	Qt5 bindings for dee
libcolumbus	Small, fast, error tolerant matcher
hud	Backend for the Unity HUD
network-manager-applet-ubuntu	NetworkManager applet w/indicator support
overlay-scrollbar	Overlay scrollbars for GTK+2 and GTK+3
frame	Open Input Framework Frame Library
grail	Gesture recognition and instantiation lib.
geis	Implementation of the GEIS interface
glewmx	OpenGL Extension Wrangler Library- legacy
nux	An OpenGL toolkit for Unity
unity-asset-pool	Design assets for Unity
zeitgeist-ubuntu	Service for logging user activities
libzeitgeist	Zeitgeist client library
nautilus-ubuntu	File manager for GNOME and Unity
unity-lens-applications	Unity lens for searching applications
unity-lens-files	Unity lens for searching files
unity-lens-music	Unity lens for searching music library
unity-lens-photos	Unity lens for searching photos
unity-lens-video	Unity lens for searching videos
unity-scope-home	Unity lens for aggregating search results
unity-scopes	Unity scopes for searching online sources
compiz-ubuntu	Compositing window manager
lightdm-unity-greeter	LightDM greeter for Unity
unity	Desktop shell designed for efficiency
unity-language-packs	Unity language packs
ubuntu-themes	Ubuntu-related window and icon themes

Troubleshooting

See the Arch wiki for more troubleshooting tips.

• AHH! Something is wrong with Unity!

  Try resetting the settings for Unity and Compiz and relogin:

    compiz.reset
    rm -rvf ~/.cache/unity/
    rm -vf ~/.cache/unity-lens-video
  

  If something is still wrong, please file a bug report at either:

  Github

  or

  Launchpad

• The global menu does not show up for Qt 4 applications.

  Just install appmenu-qt