virtualbox.org

I just installed Ubuntu Netbook Edition (UNE) 10.10 in Virtualbox 3.2.10. Installing guest additions went well too. My problem is that I can't use the new Unity interface in UNE. A normal desktop session works fine, though.

It's my understanding that the Mutter windows manager needs some hardware acceleration (I have enabled 3D acceleration in Virtualbox and allocated 1024MB base memory and 128MB video memory), but I suppose this kind of acceleration is not supported in the current Virtualbox version?

Are there any additional things to install, or will Unity in UNE be supported in the future?

As an alternative, anybody knows if UNE/Unity will work under Parallels or VMware Fusion? Or can anyone confirm that UNE/Unity works in a real, non-virtualized installation on a macbook pro from last year?

You are not alone, same for me.

Ubuntu Desktops works with Compiz, but Unity does not work.

Will try later something like looking in the logs.

Still, after installing ppa:unity/ppa for running unity with compiz no sucess to run it in VirtualBox

This is actually kinda important for people running Ubuntu in VirtualBox because in April 2011, Canonical is shifting all of the Ubuntu Editions to using Unity instead of Gnome. So if Unity doesn't work in VirtualBox, then Ubuntu 11.04 and beyond won't work in VirtualBox.

Actually, based on the current process in Ubuntu, 11.04 will ship with GNOME and you can enter it by selecting Ubuntu Classic Desktop, Ubuntu Classic Desktop (Safe Mode), or Ubuntu Desktop Edition (Safe Mode) from the logon screen, and it will also be the session you access in the case your computer does not have the hardware requirement to run Unity.

And it's actually kinda obvious they would do that, since who would make an OS with a higher-requirement environment and not have some sort of out of the box solution in case you don't meet that requirement?

I think the definitive part here is Ubuntu 11.04 will ship with Unity as the default desktop, and yes it falls back to gnome if your system can not utilize the unity desktop due to lack of one thing or another. I have been nursing this since they started daily builds. While it is progressing it is far from world class readiness.
One thing that anyone can do if they don't like the default desktop is install a different one. Kind of what Linux is all about right?

Fedora and openSUSE were trying to include Unity in their next release as an additional feature, but due to issues and lack of up stream resolution they have decided to wait.