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I installed Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop Edition, which uses the GNOME 2 Desktop Environment with the GNOME Classic shell. It comes with Compiz 0.8.6 pre-installed, so I can install and configure the bleeding-edge version of Compiz through Git.

After I moved from Ubuntu 11.10 to 10.10, I really enjoyed the GNOME Classic session with Cairo-dock and Compiz, but I still miss the simplicity of Unity.

However, one of the dependencies of Unity is Compiz 0.9.6 (I am also aware that I can download Unity Netbook edition, but it would be not practical installing it on a laptop). This means if I want to use Unity 4.22.0, I need to update Compiz, which I do not want to do because I want to use the unsupported Compiz plugins which only work on Compiz 0.8.6.

Is there a way around this? Can I download Unity as a separate session without breaking Compiz 0.8.6?

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2 Answers

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No is the simple answer - Unity in 11.10 utilises much of the Compiz rewritten code in 0.9.6. Indeed, a large majority of Unity consists of a Compiz specific plugin for v0.9.6. You will need to rewrite this to use Compiz 0.8.6.

It also has major dependencies upon the GTK+3 library set.

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Is there a way of installing both Compiz 0.8.6 and Compiz 0.9.6 on my laptop without Virtualbox or anything of that sort? – jasoncruz98 Nov 25 '11 at 13:20
Installation of Compiz 0.9.6 on Maverick is not something I can find that anybody has attempted. Even if you can compile 0.9.6 on maverick as a deb package then you could in theory purge one version with another and thus flip between the two. To be honest, I dont see much point - Maverick is just about out of support (april 2012). You should be thinking of moving beyond Maverick now. Besides - you'll still have the GTK+3 issues with Unity that will be majorily difficult to overcome. – fossfreedom♦ Nov 25 '11 at 13:42
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Install Ubuntu-netbook package from synaptic package manager -- http://www.thisweekinlinux.com/2010/10/installunity/. I didn't try it myself (I've 11.10 with gnome-shell), however looking at date for the post in question it should work properly on standard 10.10 installation.

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