Unity
Unity is an alternative shell for the GNOME desktop environment, developed by Canonical in its Ayatana project. It consists of several components including the Launcher, Dash, Lenses, Panel and Indicators.
Unity is a plugin of the Compiz window manager.
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Installation
You can install Unity with unity-base/unity-meta ebuild, can be found in the unity-gentoo overlay in layman:
root # emerge --ask unity-meta| USE Flag | Default | Description | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| chat | No | Enable Instant Messaging integration via net-im/empathy | |||||
| webapps | No | Enable Webapps desktop integration | |||||
Usage
You should be starting it via a display manager or by XSESSION=unity variable for startx
user $ XSESSION=unity startxGDM
root # emerge --ask gnome-base/gdmDISPLAYMANAGER="gdm"
Technical
Startup files
1. 'gnome-session --session=unity' is executed either by 'gdm' or via XSESSION=unity and 'startx'
- This executes /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/unity.session which starts compiz as the window manager.
2. /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/65compiz_profile-on-session is sourced at Xsession startup and if $DESKTOP_SESSION=unity, it sets the COMPIZ_CONFIG_PROFILE=ubuntu variable.
- When compiz starts it checks the value of $COMPIZ_CONFIG_PROFILE and uses the 'ubuntu' entry located in /etc/compizconfig/config
- This 'ubuntu' entry sets the compiz profile to 'unity' and sets the compizconfig backend to use gsettings (dconf) which reads the compiz settings from the dconf registry.
3. Default compizconfig settings find their way into the desktop user's dconf registry by way of /etc/xdg/autostart/compiz-migrate-to-dconf.desktop
- This is auto started at Xsession startup and actually copies the settings from the global gconf registry to the desktop user's dconf registry.
4. Default compizconfig settings find their way into the global gconf registry when compiz is emerged.
- At src_install() time the compiz ebuild uses the 'update-gconf-defaults' tool to read all files in /usr/share/gconf/defaults/ and write them out to a gconf registry file located in /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.unity/
- It then updates /etc/gconf/2/local-defaults.path to include the new /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.unity/ directory
