A 2D version of Unity has released which is light and fast and don’t demand 3D graphics enabled on the desktop so that it’s running flawlessly on any system. 2D Unity uses Qt and Qml and provides PPA for Ubuntu 10.10(Maverick) and 11.04(Natty).

Installation

Step 1: Open up a command console under Applications -> Accessories menu, download and install libqtdee and libqtgconf packages:

For i386 use:

wget https://launchpad.net/~unity-2d-team/+archive/unity-2d-daily/+build/2152860/+files/libqtdee_0.0~bzr12_i386.deb
wget https://launchpad.net/~unity-2d-team/+archive/unity-2d-daily/+build/2152865/+files/libqtgconf_0.0~bzr30_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i libqtdee*.deb libqtgconf*.deb
sudo apt-get install -f

For amd64 use:

wget https://launchpad.net/~unity-2d-team/+archive/unity-2d-daily/+build/2152859/+files/libqtdee_0.0~bzr12_amd64.deb
wget https://launchpad.net/~unity-2d-team/+archive/unity-2d-daily/+build/2152864/+files/libqtgconf_0.0~bzr30_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i libqtdee*.deb libqtgconf*.deb
sudo apt-get install -f

I installed in my 64-bit Ubuntu Maverick and encountered miss dependences error, and installed missed packages by:

sudo apt-get install libdee-1.0-0 libqt4-declarative

Note: The packages installed in Step 1 might be outdated after a period of time. They could be added into the PPA (see the Step 2), alternatively you can download the appropriate from: https://launchpad.net/~unity-2d-team/+archive/unity-2d-daily/+packages

Step 2: add the Unity 2D PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:unity-2d-team/unity-2d-daily

update and install qt:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unity-qt-default-settings

Now, log-out and log-in with Unity Qt session.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:unity-2d-team/unity-2d-daily