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Have any distributions other than Ubuntu packaged Unity?

Are there any projects that provide packages to use Unity with say Debian, Arch, or Gentoo?

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While this is a good question, this is also offtopic. – jrg♦ Oct 24 '11 at 13:09

closed as off topic by Bruno Pereira♦, jrg♦, hhlp, fossfreedom♦, enzotib Oct 28 '11 at 10:49

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2 Answers

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Unity is developed by Canonical for Ubuntu specifically, so it's not easily adopted to other platforms.

Since the primary developers for Unity are mostly interested in getting it running on Ubuntu and not other distros, I imagine it's difficult for others to get heavily involved.

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What are you talking about? If you don't know something, then ask someone. Don't spread rubbish like this. There is nothing to make it difficult to run Unity on any other platform. Unity requires Compiz, but that's available on all GNU+Linux distros. Unity 2D does not even require that. It would probably run fine even on MS Windows. – Jo-Erlend Schinstad Oct 24 '11 at 13:58
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@Jo-ErlendSchinstad If you have a problem with my answer, then edit it. I cited sources of people getting interested in running it on other platforms, and then giving up. Nelson Marques mentioned waiting for an update to a branch of Compiz required by Unity, and Adam Williamson mentioned waiting on a Unity bug fix. Perhaps it's incredibly easy to get it running on a different platform, but given the fact that a number of people have tried and given up, I'd say it's at least a little difficult. – Kris Harper Oct 24 '11 at 14:14
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They gave up because Compiz was buggy, and that makes Unity an Ubuntu-only shell? Come on. The same version of Compiz would be just as buggy on any other distro. The other source says he wants to wait until bugs are closed? That's also nothing to do with Ubuntu. You seem to be implying that Unity has some sort of lock-in mechanism, which has no root in reality. – Jo-Erlend Schinstad Oct 24 '11 at 18:46
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I didn't say anything about a "lock-in mechanism". I simply said that Unity is developed by Canonical for Ubuntu. Is that not true? It was just my impression that the primary goal for Unity developers is to get it working with Ubuntu. Like I said, if you think something is factually incorrect, you can edit my post and cite your sources. Meanwhile, OP asked if Unity was available on other distros, and I feel that I answered that question. – Kris Harper Oct 24 '11 at 19:15
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@Jo-ErlendSchinstad: At least he's provided some references to made attempts. Please link to claims otherwise. – Matt Joiner Oct 24 '11 at 22:58
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up vote 1 down vote

Unity is a very young shell and is developed in a very high pace. This means it's been somewhat difficult to keep track unless you've been following it very closely. Now that Unity is becoming more stable and the fixes will be less radical, other projects should begin to examine the possibility of repackaging.

It'll probably take some time, though, but there's no reason why other distros shouldn't make it available to their users.

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