Download Tools: How To Install Budgie Desktop In Ubuntu 16 04 Or 15 10 Via PPA

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

How To Install Budgie Desktop In Ubuntu 16 04 Or 15 10 Via PPA

Budgie is a modern GTK-based desktop that was written from scratch, with simplicity and elegance in mind.

Used by default in Solus (not to be confused with SolusOS), a relatively new Linux distribution, Budgie Desktop integrates tightly with the GNOME stack and it features a libmutter-based window manager and a customizable panel which includes Raven, an applet, notification and customization center.

Since recent Budgie Desktop versions werent available in any Ubuntu PPA, fossfreedom decided to maintain such a PPA, which offers the latest Budgie Desktop version (10.2.4 at the time Im writing this article), for Ubuntu 15.10 and 16.04. The PPA doesnt support Ubuntu 14.04 because Budgie Desktop requires a newer GTK version.

Ive briefly tested Budgie Desktop in Ubuntu and it works great for the most part - ~~the only issue I have with it so far is that the tray applet doesnt display the nm-applet or Dropbox icons (and probably others)~~. Update: this bug was fixed and the nm-applet icon now shows up in the tray!

I should also mention that Budgie Desktop doesnt support AppIndicators, though this feature might be added in the future.

In other Budgie Desktop news:

Solus 1.1 was released yesterday featuring the latest Budgie Desktop and various improvements. See THIS article for more information;
Budgie Remix is a new Ubuntu (16.04) based Budgie Desktop Linux distributions which, from what I understand, might be the foundation for a new Ubuntu flavor. Right now, this is work in progress and should only be used for testing. More info HERE.

Budgie Desktop video

For a quick look at Budgie Desktop (version 10.2.4) in Ubuntu, check out the video below:

(direct video link)

Install Budgie Desktop in Ubuntu 15.10 or 16.04 via PPA

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Important update for Ubuntu 16.04 users.

The PPA below now updates Nautilus to version 3.18 (while Ubuntu 16.04 has version 3.14.x), without any Unity patches and because of this, Nautilus doesnt come with any Unity integration, so it uses header bars, it doesnt uses a traditional menu and so on.

If youre using Unity and you know what youre doing, you can lock Nautilus so it never upgrades to the version from this PPA. The other option is to not use the PPA below!

If youve already added the PPA and upgraded Nautilus, you can use PPA Purge to purge the PPA (see below).

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To add the budgie-remix PPA and install the latest Budgie Desktop (version 10.2.4 at the time Im writing this article) in Ubuntu 15.10 or 16.04, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:budgie-remix/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install budgie-desktop

Once installed, log out and select "Budgie Desktop" from the login screen session list:

For best results, fossfreedom has included the Moka icon theme and Arc GTK theme in the PPA, and they should be installed automatically when installing budgie-desktop. After logging in, you can switch the GTK/icon themes by clicking on the Status Indicator applet (battery/sound/power), click the top-right settings icon and select "Arc-Dark" for the "Widget theme" and "Moka" for the "Icon theme".

Tip: if youve used THIS to fix large black borders around header bar apps with some themes in Ubuntu 15.10, remove it or else you wont have any shadow for header bar applications under Budgie Desktop.

Update: theres a bug that prevents the GNOME appmenu from being displayed in Budgie Desktop 10.2.4. Until this is fixed, you can use the command below to get it working:

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides "{Gtk/ShellShowsAppMenu: ,Gtk/DecorationLayout: <menu:minimize,maximize,close>}"

Purging the PPA

Since the PPA in this article provides a Nautilus version newer than the one available in the official Ubuntu 16.04 repositories, and without any Unity patches, you might need to purge the PPA at some point.

To purge the budgie-remix PPA (disable it and downgrade any packages installed from that PPA), you can use the following commands:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
sudo ppa-purge ppa:budgie-remix/ppa

via xpressubuntu

Available link for download