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When I upgraded from Ubuntu 16.04 to 17.04 I got 2 desktop shells, a default one and Unity 8. Which is the newer one, and how can I get rid of one of them?

Zanna
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Rishav Shukla
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    How do I uninstall Unity 8 from my desktop computer? check this – VJ Ranga Jan 07 '18 at 19:38
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    Unity 8 is newer, but abandoned and discontinued before it was really completely finished. What you have there on 17.04 is more of a tech preview than an actually production-ready desktop environment. The other, plain Unity (or more correctly, Unity 7) is still supported, but (unfortunately, IMHO) going to be discontinued as well, although it's still supported. Since 17.10, the default desktop environment for Ubuntu is Gnome again. – Byte Commander Jan 07 '18 at 19:45
  • Vote to reopen because OP wants to keep newest version under Ubuntu 17.04 which is either Unity 7.5 (under active development) or Unity 8 preview (which is probably dead end). Technically Unity 8 is newer in which case duplicate candidate is wrong answer. I think this question deserves more attention and answers that compare the versions as of today. For example @ByteCommander comment could be converted into a full answer and already has 8 raised flags. – WinEunuuchs2Unix Jan 09 '18 at 03:01
  • @ChristopherKyleHorton I changed my rationale for voting to reopen this question which I'm sorry to say might make your comment an orphan. – WinEunuuchs2Unix Jan 09 '18 at 03:03

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Unity 7 with xorg vs. Unity 8 with mir

According to this article when you install Ubuntu 17.04 you will get Unity 7 Desktop with xorg by default or you can log out and try Unity 8 Desktop with mir.

Accordingly if you wanted the newest desktop like requested you would want to delete Unity 7 with xorg but I would not recommend that. There are problems as outlined in the link with Unity 8 and mir whilst Unity 7 and xorg are more stable with a longer track record.

Additionally Unity 8 has been cancelled whilst Unity 7.5 development under Ubuntu 17.04 is still on-going. So one could argue that Unity 7.5 is newer than Unity 8 in some respects.

Unity 7.5

Unity 7.5 is still under active development for these Ubuntu versions:

Distribution    Distribution series     Source package  Version      
Ubuntu          Bionic (18.04)          unity   7.5.0+18.04.20171116-0ubuntu1   
Ubuntu          Artful (17.10)          unity   7.5.0+17.10.20171010-0ubuntu1   
Ubuntu          Zesty (17.04)           unity   7.5.0+17.04.20170407.1-0ubuntu1     
Ubuntu          Yakkety (16.10)         unity   7.5.0+16.10.20161112-0ubuntu1

In comparison I'm currently running Ubuntu 16.04 which is known as Unity 7.4.

Hopefully this clears up rather than clouds information already disseminated.

Community
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WinEunuuchs2Unix
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