I know it’s possible to switch to slick-greeter, but it’d be better if Unity uses slick-greeter instead of unity-greeter, IMO. Since lightdm-settings works with slick-greeter, it’d be so much easier to change lightdm’s wallpaper (for those who want to do it).
It does work with Unity, but the idea of keeping the Unity greeter is for the continuation of the Unity DE. Unity 7 is not being maintained, just staying there in the universe, so nothing is going to break it as it is today. Ubuntu atm is developing the default with gnome-shell, so there isn’t anyone develop Unity to break it. If it works, it works, without al that “development.”
Th slick greeter doesn’t pull in Unity dependencies, so can be used in all other derivatives. That’s a good thing. We have 2 greeters to choose from, thanks to Unity.
It is being maintained
What I meant was, not by the official paid Ubuntu developers, so will not be broken by “development.”
Sleek greeter lacks several features (like extra accounts-service integration, user service integraion, custom badges, brodcasting service etc). For unity-greeter wallpaper automatically changes when user changes the background. I don’t see any real benefit for the switch.
What exactly did you mean about “extra accounts-service integration”, “user service integration” & “broadcasting service”?
And since Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Budgie & Linux Mint use Slick greeter, figured it’d be better for Unity to lighten the load on the maintainers and stick with it.
Unity greeter has lots extra feature, it can show music control on lock screen email, chat messages etc. There are thousands line of code for that in unity itself.
Slick greeter works but unity also suppresses tons error message when used with that greeter. Also we are low on man power, our goal is keep unity running as it is. Unity has more than 100 related packages, everything linked with each other in some way or not. If we try to do anything it will most likely broke Unity. Atm, most packages are NOT maintained. Unity requires more than 10 people actively working just to keep up with gnome. 
2 Likes
If I remember correctly, you guys use a service to keep track of what’s being worked on, what’s done, etc. right? I thought I had it bookmarked, but couldn’t find it
I believe this is what you’re searching for: Ubuntu Unity Experience | Trello
With Ubuntu Unity now officially recognized as a flavor, I wonder if this would be reconsidered?
Or at least make the lock screen / unity-greeter customizable through a GUI.