The Composite Manager Guide: How to Get Vista-ish Effects in (K)(X)Ubuntu.

[jannol]

This is really funny, I installed the latest nvidia drivers from today 22:th dec and I have no strange artifacts or pixelerrors as I did before.

This is my current setup workarounds...

First Bug: Media Players Crash or Have Artifacts When in Full Screen Mode

I use vlc and set output to X11 - No artifacts
MPlayer also works - No artifacts
Totem - Artifacts in fullscreen

Second Bug: When you try to logout in Gnome, it seems to crash!

modified toggle_xcompmgr.bash a little and put it as a Logout button in the panel

here is my toggle_xcompmgr.bash

#!/bin/bash
a=`ps -aef | grep -i xcompmgr | awk ' {if ($8 == "xcompmgr"){printf "2"}} '`
if [[ x$a = x ]]
then
#xcompmgr -cCfF -D3 -r10 &
xcompmgr -cfF -D 2 -O -r8 &
#xcompmgr -c
killall gnome-panel
else
kill -9 `ps -aef | grep -i xcomp | awk ' {if ($8 == "xcompmgr"){printf $2}} '`
gnome-session-save --kill
fi

Third and Fourth Bug:Games and screensavers

As mentioned before by poofyhairguy

Fifth Bug: Xcompmgr crashes when using Firefox!

I don't use firefox, I use opera and it works great.

Sixth Bug: Xcompmgr Crashing when you are doing important things.

As mentioned before by poofyhairguy

Seventh Bug: Problems with Flash in Firefox.

I had issues with opera aswell so I

sudo gedit /usr/bin/opera

and changed it to look like this >

# Location of the Opera binaries
OPERA_BINARYDIR=/usr/lib/opera/8.50-20050916.1/
export OPERA_BINARYDIR
export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1

Eighth Bug: You get addicted to using xcompmgr and can't go back.

Well, at least I can share my excitement with my demos ;P

I also wonder if anyone have a good idea of how the transd opacity could be really useful. Only things that I can think of is if one wanna compare something or maybe just for a bit better overview of running apps. I don't use the mouse focus thingy but WIN-key to toggle opacity so I can check my server logging and gaim quickly but other than that I can't really find any big use of it.

I must say that I really have fun cause of ubuntuforums, all the ideas, thoughts and so on. Well I made a short demo again, let me know if you want me to stop with those. This time it should work with most media players, the first one I made does not work well with other than vlc.

Here's the demo (http://linux.jannol.com/ubuntu/demos/demo-0.mpg) DIVX 19.2 MB 2:15 min 1280x1024

Unfortuneately my computer is a bit slow when recording so the effects does not appear exactly as IRL.

I don't know if this already exist but I made xcompmgr-1.1.3_1.1.3-1_i386.deb from xcompmgr-1.1.3.tar.gz and it worked for me, but that xvidcap_1.1.3-p7_i386.deb from sourceforge did not.

Since I am trying to learn all kind of stuff, can someone experienced try my deb and let me know if it is any good?! http://linux.jannol.com/ubuntu/debs/xcompmgr-1.1.3_1.1.3-1_i386.deb

BTW: How can I check if there is a memory leak and how big it is? Is it Xorg that grows and grows in memory usage?

[poofyhairguy]

This is really funny, I installed the latest nvidia drivers from today 22:th dec and I have no strange artifacts or pixelerrors as I did before.

This is my current setup workarounds...

First Bug: Media Players Crash or Have Artifacts When in Full Screen Mode

I use vlc and set output to X11 - No artifacts
MPlayer also works - No artifacts
Totem - Artifacts in fullscreen

Second Bug: When you try to logout in Gnome, it seems to crash!

modified toggle_xcompmgr.bash a little and put it as a Logout button in the panel

here is my toggle_xcompmgr.bash

#!/bin/bash
a=`ps -aef | grep -i xcompmgr | awk ' {if ($8 == "xcompmgr"){printf "2"}} '`
if [[ x$a = x ]]
then
#xcompmgr -cCfF -D3 -r10 &
xcompmgr -cfF -D 2 -O -r8 &
#xcompmgr -c
killall gnome-panel
else
kill -9 `ps -aef | grep -i xcomp | awk ' {if ($8 == "xcompmgr"){printf $2}} '`
gnome-session-save --kill
fi

Third and Fourth Bug:Games and screensavers

As mentioned before by poofyhairguy

Fifth Bug: Xcompmgr crashes when using Firefox!

I don't use firefox, I use opera and it works great.

Sixth Bug: Xcompmgr Crashing when you are doing important things.

As mentioned before by poofyhairguy

Seventh Bug: Problems with Flash in Firefox.

I had issues with opera aswell so I

sudo gedit /usr/bin/opera

and changed it to look like this >

# Location of the Opera binaries
OPERA_BINARYDIR=/usr/lib/opera/8.50-20050916.1/
export OPERA_BINARYDIR
export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1

Eighth Bug: You get addicted to using xcompmgr and can't go back.

Well, at least I can share my excitement with my demos ;P

I also wonder if anyone have a good idea of how the transd opacity could be really useful. Only things that I can think of is if one wanna compare something or maybe just for a bit better overview of running apps. I don't use the mouse focus thingy but WIN-key to toggle opacity so I can check my server logging and gaim quickly but other than that I can't really find any big use of it.

I must say that I really have fun cause of ubuntuforums, all the ideas, thoughts and so on. Well I made a short demo again, let me know if you want me to stop with those. This time it should work with most media players, the first one I made does not work well with other than vlc.

Here's the demo (http://www.jannol.com/test/demo-0.mpg) DIVX 19.2 MB 2:15 min 1280x1024

Unfortuneately my computer is a bit slow when recording so the effects does not appear exactly as IRL.

I don't know if this already exist but I made xcompmgr-1.1.3_1.1.3-1_i386.deb from xcompmgr-1.1.3.tar.gz and it worked for me, but that xvidcap_1.1.3-p7_i386.deb from sourceforge did not.

Since I am trying to learn all kind of stuff, can someone experienced try my deb and let me know if it is any good?! http://shr.jannol.com/ubuntu/debs/xcompmgr-1.1.3_1.1.3-1_i386.deb

BTW: How can I check if there is a memory leak and how big it is? Is it Xorg that grows and grows in memory usage?


First of all- great post! You just inspired me to try the new Nvidia driver. Mind If I put that deb in the initial post of the thread?

Second of all- the way to tell (memory leak) is if suddenly at some point you CPU rockets to 100% and stays there. Add the "system monitor" to the Gnome Panel to keep and eye on it.

Third of all, thanks for the movie. Can I put a link to it in the first post too?

Fourth: Can you give me pointers on how you made that deb? I want to make an AMD 64 one.

[poofyhairguy]

Fans of Xcompmgr! I talk about its fate today in my new Eye Candy blog entry. Look here to see:

http://doc.gwos.org/index.php/Poofyhairguy%27s_Eye_Candy_Report

Or if its down, look here:

http://linuxeyecandy.blogspot.com/

[jannol]

First of all- great post! You just inspired me to try the new Nvidia driver. Mind If I put that deb in the initial post of the thread?

Second of all- the way to tell (memory leak) is if suddenly at some point you CPU rockets to 100% and stays there. Add the "system monitor" to the Gnome Panel to keep and eye on it.

Third of all, thanks for the movie. Can I put a link to it in the first post too?

Fourth: Can you give me pointers on how you made that deb? I want to make an AMD 64 one.

Sure you can put the deb in the first post but please make sure it works first ;P

Link to the movie? Of course!!! Spread the fun ;P

How I made a deb?

sudo apt-get install checkinstall

then build as usual but instead of
sudo make install

you type
sudo checkinstall

[poofyhairguy]

Sure you can put the deb in the first post but please make sure it works first ;P


If I get my chroot working tonight I will. Can anyone else test? Please.

And thanks for the guide. I have a lot of debs to make now.

[poofyhairguy]

LARGEST EDIT EVER!!!!!!


Look at first post.

[poofyhairguy]

I could almost pee on myself!!!!!


With newest Nvidia driver the log-out bug is gone!!!!!

[poofyhairguy]

Thanks to Jannol I now have a 64 bit deb of the newest xcompmgr for everyone!

Please enjoy, and remember December 22, 2005- the day the Linux Desktop got modernized!

[rosslaird]

I could almost pee on myself!!!!!

Well, I wouldn't go that far, but on my system the newest nvidia driver does indeed deliver a completely stable composite environment (I'm using xfwm in gnome and xfce).

Ross

[poofyhairguy]

Ok. I have found one way to make it crash. An old bug I found a while back does it.

What ever you do, do NOT cross a playing video file (or audio visualization) under the Gnome-Panel. A hard lock up awaits you if you do.

Otherwise it seems to be stable.

Thank you Nvidia for giving me what I really wanted for Xmas!

[jannol]

not for me :(

[poofyhairguy]

not for me :(


Explain more please!!! Reproduce the bug! I need to know so I can find a work around.

I hear 3D desktop kills it (no surprise there). And there is the gnome-panel thing. What other bugs are going on?

[rosslaird]

I hear 3D desktop kills it (no surprise there).

Not on my system. 3ddesktop works perfectly.

[poofyhairguy]

Not on my system. 3ddesktop works perfectly.

I must try.

Skippy-xd works well.

[jannol]

I use XDMCP in gdm because I use my old laptop as a thin client, when I disabled XDMCP it works almost every time.

I get this error in /var/log/daemon.log when XDMCP is on

Dec 23 08:06:47 localhost gdm[8707]: gdm_slave_xioerror_handler: Ödesdigert X-fel - Startar om :0

Actually, if I wait for a while and do not press Esc it restarts gdm and I can simply log in. When this happens I never get any logout options, it kinda freeze like before except it restarts gdm.

I am not absolutely sure if it has to do with XDMCP, I'll have to dig into a bit more.

[poofyhairguy]

I use XDMCP in gdm because I use my old laptop as a thin client, when I disabled XDMCP it works almost every time.

I get this error in /var/log/daemon.log when XDMCP is on

Dec 23 08:06:47 localhost gdm[8707]: gdm_slave_xioerror_handler: Ödesdigert X-fel - Startar om :0

Actually, if I wait for a while and do not press Esc it restarts gdm and I can simply log in. When this happens I never get any logout options, it kinda freeze like before except it restarts gdm.

I am not absolutely sure if it has to do with XDMCP, I'll have to dig into a bit more.

This is the stuff good bugreports are made off. Please get more info.

[nocturn]

I tried your guide, thanks for it, but my Nvidia driver locks up (Xid 13) :-(

[jannol]

Hmm, about the logout issue...

I take it back I guess, it is probably not XDMCP, it simply works from time to time but I do not have a clue, I checked a lot of settings, log files and so on but I can't tell why it does work occasionally. I also tried building xcompmgr the usual way but it is just the same.

If it does work for others please let me know if it is me that fu-ked up or not.

For now I can live with my logoout button so it is not really an issue for me but... you know... ;)

[poofyhairguy]

I tried your guide, thanks for it, but my Nvidia driver locks up (Xid 13) :-(


What card you have? You should tell Nvidia about that. Really. I hear they are good with bug reports.

[nocturn]

What card you have? You should tell Nvidia about that. Really. I hear they are good with bug reports.

I have Nvidia Geforce GO card, but I had the same issue with my old Geforce MX in my desktop. I filed a bug report on the desktop card a while back, but they basicly tell you to turn RenderAccel off.

There is a Ubuntu Bug open for this too at: https://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=7183

[jannol]

have you tried the nvidia-glx-legacy driver from ubuntu repos?

[nocturn]

have you tried the nvidia-glx-legacy driver from ubuntu repos?

The legacy driver is for older types of cards, mine are included in the normal driver module. They work fine, except for the lockups, for which the cause is unknown (many people report them, though only in specific combination of hardware, driver and kernels...

[poofyhairguy]

I have Nvidia Geforce GO card, but I had the same issue with my old Geforce MX in my desktop. I filed a bug report on the desktop card a while back, but they basicly tell you to turn RenderAccel off.

There is a Ubuntu Bug open for this too at: https://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=7183

Yeah, my girlfriends laptop has renderaccel problems too and its a Geforce Go card. I guess the Nvidia guys/gals are leaving the older ones out.

[kleeman]

This may be of relevance for nvidia users:

Description: NVIDIA Linux Display Driver (8178 )

Changelog:

* Fixed a problem where certain precompiled kernel interfaces were not recognized.
* Improved stability with the Composite X extension.
* Fixed a corruption bug with RenderAccel and the Composite X extension when using wide desktops.
* Fixed a problem validating HDTV modes on GeForce 6200.
* Fixed detection of certain older TV encoders.
* Fixed installation problems with Linux kernel source trees using separate KBUILD output directories.
* Fixed installation problems on newer Debian systems.
* Added support for NVIDIA SLI. Please see the README for details.
* Added a new utility 'nvidia-xconfig', which is a commandline tool for updating X configuration files.

[nocturn]

This may be of relevance for nvidia users:

Description: NVIDIA Linux Display Driver (8178 )

Changelog:

* Fixed a problem where certain precompiled kernel interfaces were not recognized.
* Improved stability with the Composite X extension.
* Fixed a corruption bug with RenderAccel and the Composite X extension when using wide desktops.
* Fixed a problem validating HDTV modes on GeForce 6200.
* Fixed detection of certain older TV encoders.
* Fixed installation problems with Linux kernel source trees using separate KBUILD output directories.
* Fixed installation problems on newer Debian systems.
* Added support for NVIDIA SLI. Please see the README for details.
* Added a new utility 'nvidia-xconfig', which is a commandline tool for updating X configuration files.


This makes me wanna update....

Anyone running these drivers on Breezy? Did they cause much breakage?

[jannol]

using them in my demo and poofyhairguy also installed them and the work great.

I have a Nvidia 6800 LE unlocked all pipes and flashed to 400@900 which btw gave me artifacts in 2D and 3D in win XP.

[Evil Whisper]

Will these new drivers work with my GeForce FX5500?

Also does anyone have any ideas how I can fix the memory leak that suddenly occurs after 5 hours of use?

Edit: Does anyone have a how-to to update my drivers to the new ones?
Edit2: Could I just compile the drivers and install using check install?

Thanks,
- Evil Whisper

[jannol]

* The drivers will probably work for your card since it is not very old or unusual

* I think the memory leak or cpu load still is an issue even with Dapper, My comp gets sluggish after about approx. 6-8 hours, when it happens, I use my toggle button and turn off/on xcompmgr and then it runs for 6-8 hours again, still searching for a solution.

* Installation help can be found
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=75074&highlight=nvidia+driver
and
http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-8178/README/chapter-02.html#id2504480

* You could probably use checkinstall but if you build and compile you need a bunch if dev libs, I do not now which

[Evil Whisper]

Edit: Thanks!

I installed the kernel source extracted it and then installed the kernel headers and I'm running the new drivers now!

I'll give the xcompmgr another go.

I still have the log-out bug is there any way to fix that I'm running the latest nvidia drivers.

[hectorC]

I could almost pee on myself!!!!!


With newest Nvidia driver the log-out bug is gone!!!!!

Not for me. I updated the nvidia drivers to the latest and still can't see the log-out screen.

I have a nvidia 6600.

Hector

[Evil Whisper]

You hit the memory wall. My 128 mb card hits that wall too. When you use drop shadows, Xcompmgr has a bad memory leak. When the leak runs over how much RAM for video card has....the CPU starts having to make up for it....and it all slows down. The only solution now is to have a 256mb or 512mb card, or avoid shadows. Thank Rasterman for this info.


My GeForce FX5500 is a 256mb card.
I guess I'll disable drop shadows then.
I do hope that in future releases they
fix this memory leak in drop shadows
as they are one of my favorite parts
about xcompmgr. :p

I'm also looking for a way to exclude gdesklets from xcompmgr's effects because of the larger semi transparent square around them.

Also is there a way to automatically set inactive windows to transset 0.5? And return them to 1 when they become active again?

Edit: I've heard there has been a release newer then the one in the ubuntu repositories.
Where could I find this? And once I do find it if I make a deb using check install could I post
it here?

[Iandefor]

Oh my word... I'd been planning on running this on my next computer (Due around January) full-time, but I just couldn't wait, so I enabled compositing, got xcompmgr and transd... I have fallen in love with the visual effects, so much so I'm going to keep these effects as long as I can tolerate the horrible slowness it engenders on this computer. Thank you so much, Poofyhairguy! this is probably the greatest effect I've seen on computers, ever... one note, though: it doesn't seem like Enlightenment DR16 and xcompmgr play nicely together; upon logging in using E and xcompmgr, anything that E was taking care of (Window borders, the desktop background) simply turned black. Running xfdesktop and xfwm4 is a suitable replacement, though.

[poofyhairguy]

Anyone running these drivers on Breezy? Did they cause much breakage?

I am. No breakage for me.

[poofyhairguy]

Not for me. I updated the nvidia drivers to the latest and still can't see the log-out screen.

I have a nvidia 6600.

Hector


So close to my set up yet they are so different.

Sometimes x86 land is frustrating.

Are you using newest Xcompmgr?

[poofyhairguy]

My GeForce FX5500 is a 256mb card.
I guess I'll disable drop shadows then.
I do hope that in future releases they
fix this memory leak in drop shadows
as they are one of my favorite parts
about xcompmgr. :p

Also is there a way to automatically set inactive windows to transset 0.5? And return them to 1 when they become active again?

Sounds like you need to try KDE. Its compositor has better drop shadows support, and it does the "make non active windows translucent thing."


I'm also looking for a way to exclude gdesklets from xcompmgr's effects because of the larger semi transparent square around them.

If you are talking about the shadows its impossible (well...not impossible...just damn close). If you are talking about transparancies I think the newest gdesklets actually supports Xcompmgr! Its an option somewhere (to checkmark).


Edit: I've heard there has been a release newer then the one in the ubuntu repositories.
Where could I find this? And once I do find it if I make a deb using check install could I post
it here?

deb in this post:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=597951&postcount=251

[poofyhairguy]

Oh my word... I'd been planning on running this on my next computer (Due around January) full-time, but I just couldn't wait, so I enabled compositing, got xcompmgr and transd... I have fallen in love with the visual effects, so much so I'm going to keep these effects as long as I can tolerate the horrible slowness it engenders on this computer. Thank you so much, Poofyhairguy! this is probably the greatest effect I've seen on computers, ever... one note, though: it doesn't seem like Enlightenment DR16 and xcompmgr play nicely together; upon logging in using E and xcompmgr, anything that E was taking care of (Window borders, the desktop background) simply turned black. Running xfdesktop and xfwm4 is a suitable replacement, though.


Yeah...the Enlightenments don't play well with Xcompmgr. Hence the lack of an Enlightened Gnome Guide for Breezy from me.

[jannol]

Now it's xmas in gmt+1

Merry Christmas (http://shr.jannol.com/ubuntu/xmas.mpg)

[Evil Whisper]

Thanks for the info poofyhairguy, I got gdesklets running perfect now.
The only thing left to fix is the logout bug. :-(

Would it be possible to script the make non active windows transparent thing,
maybe using a bash script or a perl script and then adding it either to your gnome session
or a cron job?

(It would have to check the window status and then run transset 0.5 on it).

[varunus]

transd, posted somewhere in this thread by RAOF, does exactly what you just said; it sets inactive windows to a different transparency.

[Evil Whisper]

Thanks for telling me about that heres the link:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=500959&postcount=112

Woo Hoo! Now I can stop wishing I had a mac because of the drop shadows and eye candy.

I'm using:
xcompmgr -fF -I-.002 -O-.003 -D6 && ./transd &

Everything is fast and responsive been using the above setting without transd for about 5 hours so far today using the latest nvidia drivers ( 8178 ) and no crashes or memory leaks so far.

[poofyhairguy]

Thanks for the info poofyhairguy, I got gdesklets running perfect now.
The only thing left to fix is the logout bug. :-(

For me the new drivers fixed it. That tells me its an Nvidia buy. Time for a good bug report so they will fix it:

linux-bugs@nvidia.com


Would it be possible to script the make non active windows transparent thing,
maybe using a bash script or a perl script and then adding it either to your gnome session
or a cron job?


Such a script exists in this thread.

[Evil Whisper]

Poofy what would I put in a bug report to nvidia?

Edit: Also one thing how would I make my gnome panel stay visible?
when I use any setting without drop shadows it makes the gnome panel
hide under the windows.

Edit2:

Transd crashes on me with the following:

X Error of failed request: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)
Major opcode of failed request: 15 (X_QueryTree)
Resource id in failed request: 0x2200376
Serial number of failed request: 4921
Current serial number in output stream: 4921

[shodekiagari]

Awesome guide, thank you!

I remember using this way back when and it was slower than slow. But now it runs really smoothly, as nice as my old 500 mhz ibook :D (That's not an insult, it runs well on it...)

I'd just thought I'd add my specs to those who want to get an idea of what kind of hardware it works well with. 1.5 Ghz Pentium IV (I believe) and a NVIDIA Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 MX/MX 400] (from xorg.conf)

I'm using xcompmgr, I had to turn off kde's control as it didn't work and then crashed kde. Also, kcontrol seems to crash my computer now. I'm not sure why. System Settings still works fine.

Also, I changed the D6 in the "best" command to a D2 as the menus were taking too long to appear. I'm impatient... hehe. Just wanted to say thanks to everyone and detail what I went through to get it perfect.

shodekiagari

[poofyhairguy]

Poofy what would I put in a bug report to nvidia?

What you have at the bottom of your post.


Edit: Also one thing how would I make my gnome panel stay visible?
when I use any setting without drop shadows it makes the gnome panel
hide under the windows.

You have to kill it. Maybe even a few times. It ALWAYS comes back. This command till you see them:

killall gnome-panel

Edit2:


Transd crashes on me with the following:

X Error of failed request: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)
Major opcode of failed request: 15 (X_QueryTree)
Resource id in failed request: 0x2200376
Serial number of failed request: 4921
Current serial number in output stream: 4921


Send that to Nvidia as it is. Let the response guide you. One bug at a time though. This one first for pratice.

[poofyhairguy]

Awesome guide, thank you!

I remember using this way back when and it was slower than slow. But now it runs really smoothly, as nice as my old 500 mhz ibook :D (That's not an insult, it runs well on it...)

I'd just thought I'd add my specs to those who want to get an idea of what kind of hardware it works well with. 1.5 Ghz Pentium IV (I believe) and a NVIDIA Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 MX/MX 400] (from xorg.conf)

I'm using xcompmgr, I had to turn off kde's control as it didn't work and then crashed kde. Also, kcontrol seems to crash my computer now. I'm not sure why. System Settings still works fine.

Also, I changed the D6 in the "best" command to a D2 as the menus were taking too long to appear. I'm impatient... hehe. Just wanted to say thanks to everyone and detail what I went through to get it perfect.

shodekiagari


Thanks! I try my best!

[Evil Whisper]

So the transd crash is a nvidia bug?


X Error of failed request: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)
Major opcode of failed request: 15 (X_QueryTree)
Resource id in failed request: 0x2200376
Serial number of failed request: 4921
Current serial number in output stream: 4921


I'm just double checking and If so I'll file a bug report tonight.

[poofyhairguy]

So the transd crash is a nvidia bug?


X Error of failed request: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)
Major opcode of failed request: 15 (X_QueryTree)
Resource id in failed request: 0x2200376
Serial number of failed request: 4921
Current serial number in output stream: 4921


I'm just double checking and If so I'll file a bug report tonight.

Thing about it is, with Nvidia and composite we don't know where the bugs come from. Do they come from Xcompmgr? From transd? From the composite extension? From the Nvidia driver?

Since the driver is closed we cannot know. So tell them whats going on and they will hopefully respond back with a certain answer.

All composite bugs should be reported to Nvidia (if you use Nvidia card) because if it IS their fault, only then can they fix it.....

[imranj]

Ok, i have the new composition manager up and running , stable as of now, in KDE 3.4.

AMD 3.2 Gig , with 512 MB mem and stuff, its ok with but of sluggishness, more optimization and improvements are need to make everything look natural and smooth.

All system are operational and well.

[23meg]

Longer term report: I've found the combination of the new xcompmgr + Nvidia 7676 drivers + Breezy xorg build to be very stable with my Nvidia Go6200 chip; three or four crashes in about a month.

[fannymites]

WOW! I think I might change to Kubuntu.
I don't use kde on ubuntu but when I last did the kde composite manager seemed horribly slow in comparison to gnome.
Well I'm using kde 3.5 on suse and I've just been fiddling around with the composite manager there and it's fantastic. Much faster in kde 3.5 and the new "window decorations only" transparency mode is great, very vista.
Couple of problems though, the settings seeme to reset themselves (shadow size etc) every so often though I'm not sure if this is something to do with suse. The other thing I notice with the kde composite manager in kde is that the shadows seem sharper round the edges but if I run xcompmgr in a terminal they are the same as gnome (this is in ubuntu as well as suse).
Does anyone else notice this? Also, can anyone recommend a really good setting for shadows using kde's composite manager? I've got fading and transparency looking just right but I can't seem to get the shadows looking really good.

[Cliff76]

Hi,

Kubuntu newbie here just migrated from Mepis. I tried the composite thing about six months ago on Mepis and it was horribly slow and buggy. I'm just getting back to a stable system after various twiddlings in Mepis caused me a whole ton of Windows-like-required reboots. I'm afraid to play with anything too cutting edge but after I saw the video I'm not sure I can resist. The one thing I'm afraid of is all of the manual steps in the howto that seem necessary for preventing bugs. I can easily see losing a week or two in time spent adjusting things. My question is what's the easiest way to get started for someone like me running KDE-3.5 on Breezy with the latest NVidia driver? Is is just a matter of putting the lines in my xorg.conf? Can I then play with the composite settings in KControl? Would I have to do the manual legwork required to keep Firefox healthy? I haven't yet installed it but I want to start using superkaramba too as I port my stuff from my Mepis partition. I heard the composite stuff doesn't work well with super-karamba. Is this still true as of current? Will the NVidia driver update help that as well? I'm just nervous to try bleeding edge stuff.

[Heretic09]

I get "no composite extension" when I try to run xcompmgr. I have an nvidia 5200 with the official drivers from breezy.

This is my xorg.conf:


(skipped fonts stuff)
Section "Module"
Load "bitmap"
Load "dbe"
Load "ddc"
Load "dri"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "record"
Load "type1"
Load "vbe"
Load "v4l"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "keyboard"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "NVIDIA Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200]"
Driver "nvidia"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "SyncMaster"
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "NVIDIA Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200]"
Monitor "SyncMaster"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection



Can any one see whats causing this?

[reet]

Heretic09, perhaps try to move Section Extensions above Section Device? That's all I can think of.

[Heretic09]

Heretic09, perhaps try to move Section Extensions above Section Device? That's all I can think of.

Tried that, same issue.

[poofyhairguy]

I get "no composite extension" when I try to run xcompmgr. I have an nvidia 5200 with the official drivers from breezy.

This is my xorg.conf:


(skipped fonts stuff)
Section "Module"
Load "bitmap"
Load "dbe"
Load "ddc"
Load "dri"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "record"
Load "type1"
Load "vbe"
Load "v4l"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "keyboard"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "NVIDIA Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200]"
Driver "nvidia"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "SyncMaster"
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "NVIDIA Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200]"
Monitor "SyncMaster"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection



Can any one see whats causing this?

My best advice would be to move the composite part to the end- after the dri part.

[poofyhairguy]

Hi,

Kubuntu newbie here just migrated from Mepis. I tried the composite thing about six months ago on Mepis and it was horribly slow and buggy. I'm just getting back to a stable system after various twiddlings in Mepis caused me a whole ton of Windows-like-required reboots. I'm afraid to play with anything too cutting edge but after I saw the video I'm not sure I can resist. The one thing I'm afraid of is all of the manual steps in the howto that seem necessary for preventing bugs. I can easily see losing a week or two in time spent adjusting things. My question is what's the easiest way to get started for someone like me running KDE-3.5 on Breezy with the latest NVidia driver? Is is just a matter of putting the lines in my xorg.conf?

Install new Nvidia drivers. Fix up Xorg.conf. My advice section is mostly for Xcompmgr. Just know that it might crash on you one day....and you will be fine.


Can I then play with the composite settings in KControl? Would I have to do the manual legwork required to keep Firefox healthy? I haven't yet installed it but I want to start using superkaramba too as I port my stuff from my Mepis partition. I heard the composite stuff doesn't work well with super-karamba. Is this still true as of current? Will the NVidia driver update help that as well? I'm just nervous to try bleeding edge stuff.

If you are scared, they maybe stay away. We are on the knife edge here. I say its stable, but thats my definition of stable. As in "unless I do one of the things I know will crash it, it only crashes once a week on its own."

The problem with superkaramba and gdesklets is that they have drop shadows. I have no solution to this problem.

Good luck.

[Heretic09]

I'm a dumbass. I was doing it through an NX session with the moronic assumption that it should work. Note to self xcompmgr and/or transset does not work through freenx.

[Heretic09]

Does any one know how to apply transparancy just to one app? eg Yakuake or Konsole? As in when the app starts up its automatically semi transparent where as in transset you would have to manually select the app you want to be transparent every time.

[imranj]

I just upgraded to KDE 3.5 and i have noticed improved performance.

In the rendering of the effects, but i still feel that it doesn't use it or provides the smoothness like i get in OSX.

Is it due to fact that its still "Composite manager" is still a work in progress.

[oobuntoo]

Does anyone know of any way to make KDE panel uses REAL transparency (not the fake one you get thru configuring panel)? Seems like the KDE built-in composite manager only affect apps.

[Cyfr]

I have a ATI 9800pro that I used for gaming on windows.. now I really want these sexy effects on my Ubuntu install..

Could anyone recommend a nvidia card ( i guess ) that will do what I want perfectly and not lag or whatever, but I dont want a gamers card since I havn't played games in ages and prolly won't ever on Linux

[imranj]

Yeah u can do that, its the same go to settings>desktop>window behaviour>Translucency Tab and the option active tabs.

Cool yeah, and yeah for best performance switch off shadows,as its for me a big drag, see if u can manage yeah dude.

[imranj]

I have a ATI 9800pro that I used for gaming on windows.. now I really want these sexy effects on my Ubuntu install..

Could anyone recommend a nvidia card ( i guess ) that will do what I want perfectly and not lag or whatever, but I dont want a gamers card since I havn't played games in ages and prolly won't ever on Linux

Get the best mid-class current card, i am not sure which one, but the newest one should do and yeah its damm stable with the latest drivers okie

[Cyfr]

Thats what im asking.. ive no idea what the best mid-class card is :p
I dont want to spend too much, but im not on a shoestring budget so want something that will do the task at hand (and future tasks that may appear!)

[billputer]

For a mid-range Nvidia graphics card, I'd recommend the 6600GT. I'm running an XFX 6600GT and it works perfectly with the nvidia drivers from the repos. Looking at the most recent price guide in Anandtech it'll probably cost you about $150 for one.

Further reading:
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2639&p=3

[jannol]

I am using 6800 LE and it works great. I guess a standard 6600 will do just fine, those can be found for about $100

<edit>
billputer, haha I was to slow, well 6600GT is also great
</edit>

[varunus]

Heck, if you're not playing games, you could get away with an NVIDIA 5000 series card.

You could also buy an ATI 92XX for $25 and set up EXA for special effects like the first post shows...you may need dapper for this though, which is unstable.

[piedamaro]

I found that killing gnome-panel destroy the purpose of using -C because the panel still has drop shadows, and it probably crashes applications with a notification icon.
Killing metacity instead of gnome-panel solves both of these problems for me, what do you think?

[Iandefor]

Yeah...the Enlightenments don't play well with Xcompmgr. They don't, eh? Do you know if Raster plans on working out how to get E to work with xcompmgr?

[poofyhairguy]

Could anyone recommend a nvidia card ( i guess ) that will do what I want perfectly and not lag or whatever, but I dont want a gamers card since I havn't played games in ages and prolly won't ever on Linux

A 6600 GT. Thats what I got for this stuff, works great.


A 6600 might work. Any less is wasting money. A 5xxx series one I have is MUCH slower and crashier than my 6600 GT.

[poofyhairguy]

You could also buy an ATI 92XX for $25 and set up EXA for special effects like the first post shows...you may need dapper for this though, which is unstable.

True. But get the 256mb one if you do that.

[MistaED]

Hey I was wondering (not sure if someone else has asked this) but is it possible to upgrade breezy's xorg to 7.0 or just 6.9 at least? I'd like to show off someone's slow pc that it can be fast and pretty again (it has a nice Ati 9200 in it) but I don't want them to run the unstable dapper drake for it.

Thanks
-MistaED

[poofyhairguy]

They don't, eh? Do you know if Raster plans on working out how to get E to work with xcompmgr?

Not really. Rasterman wants eye candy everyone can use, and thats not composite for at least two years.

[poofyhairguy]

In the rendering of the effects, but i still feel that it doesn't use it or provides the smoothness like i get in OSX.

Is it due to fact that its still "Composite manager" is still a work in progress.

Its because in OSX the entire Xserver like thing is built from the ground up for this stuff. We are bolting it on.

OSX is three to five years ahead in this area.

[piedamaro]

I made a script: it fades unfocused windows and gives 100% opacity to the focused one. Pretty neat but somewhat resource hungry. Inspired by eutotrans.rb by Daniel Forchheimer.
It depends on bash and standard X tools only, and should work with other WMs too (tested with metacity).
#!/bin/sh
# This is a script that uses transset-df or any other transset-
# patch that can take an window id as argument to allow
# opacity to follow the focused window.
# The focused window get opacity 1.0 while all others
# have opacity set by the var 'FADING' in this script

# It is licensed under the GNU GPL license
# http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
# This program is written by: Luca De Rugeriis
# inspired by the work of Daniel Forchheimer (eutotrans.rb)
# Last update: 2005-12-29

FADING=0.85
TRANSSET="/usr/bin/transset-df"

#fade all windows
WINDOWS_LIST=`xwininfo -root -children | grep -v panel | sed '1,6d' | grep -v 0x1000021 | cut -d " " -f 6`
for i in $WINDOWS_LIST;do
$TRANSSET --id $i $FADING
done

LAST_FOCUSED=0

while (true); do
FOCUSED=`xdpyinfo | grep focus | cut -c 16-24`
if [ $LAST_FOCUSED != $FOCUSED ]; then
$TRANSSET --id $FOCUSED 1
$TRANSSET --id $LAST_FOCUSED -t $FADING
LAST_FOCUSED=$FOCUSED
fi
sleep .1
done


To launch and kill it I use modified version of frodon's script:
#!/bin/bash

if [ "$(pidof xcompmgr)" ]
then
killall xcompmgr
for i in `ps ax|grep eutotrans|grep -v grep |cut -d " " -f 1`;do
kill $i
done
sleep .5
killall metacity

else
xcompmgr -fF -I.02 -O.02 -D6 -cC -t-4 -l-8 -r5&
~/bin/eutotrans-clean.sh&
sleep .5
killall metacity
fi


Have fun!

[zenlunatic]

Will this work on PowerPC? Also how will it run on a 600mhz with 8 megs of video ram?

[poofyhairguy]

Will this work on PowerPC? Also how will it run on a 600mhz with 8 megs of video ram?

I honestly have no idea.

Try it and tell me.

You might have to compile your own xcompmgr though. Maybe not. Try installing it in synaptic.

[jeffreyvergara.NET]

how do you make gdesklet always on top when composite manager is on? the gdesklet will be always on top again if i turned of composite manager.

[Footer]

Cool stuff. Just discovered this the other day. Got it up and running and been playing with it for just a short time. I have a quick question though. My task bar and SuperKaramba apps on the desktop seem to be a bit more faded/washed out when I have translucency enabled. They're bright and fine when not enabled. Is there some way to make them bright yet still keep translucency enabled?

Thanks!

:)

[fannymites]

Has anyone here tried running kwin in dapper (gnome)? Last time I tried kwin in gnome was in debian a while back and it was hopeless but in dapper it's running perfectly and not a single crash so far. The kwin composite manager is so much better.
http://img424.imageshack.us/img424/8443/dapper8hc.th.png (http://img424.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dapper8hc.png)

[poofyhairguy]

how do you make gdesklet always on top when composite manager is on? the gdesklet will be always on top again if i turned of composite manager.


Gdesklets kinda misbehave. I still haven't nailed this down yet.

[greenwom]

Well I'm not a gamer but I wanted a little more muscle in the DVD area so I picked up a FX 5500 and it works great. I just went through this how to but I went went from 0 swap to mike1@ubuntu3:~$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 644804 289200 355604 0 20980 104316
-/+ buffers/cache: 163904 480900
Swap: 1614492 99876 1514616
mike1@ubuntu3:~$

And that's after killing about 20 bash entries in the system monitor. should compositing swamp the system this bad?
Looks good anyway, I'm going without the drop shadows (I'll wait for more stability)

[piedamaro]

#!/bin/bash
a=`ps -aef | grep -i xcompmgr | awk ' {if ($8 == "xcompmgr"){printf "2"}} '`
if [[ $a = "" ]]
then
xcompmgr -fFcC &
killall gnome-panel
else
kill -9 `ps -aef | grep -i xcomp | awk ' {if ($8 == "xcompmgr"){printf $2}} '`
killall gnome-panel
fi

-f parameters in ps is useless in this case: it yields an ascii forrest rapresentation, couldn't see why it's used here.
why -i in grep? xcompmgr exe is lower case
the awk doesn't return anything here beacuse /bin/sh is missing on command line: much more effective to grep form xcommgr then match the PID field with awk.
Last, it launches ps to find if xcomp is running, then it executes the very same command a second time to kill it: redundant.
My 2 cents.

[jannol]

could you write us the improved code?

[piedamaro]

I posted a script in the previous page, but ymmv.
Ah, no pun intended, just want to see if I missed something.

[Paulus]

Has anyone here tried running kwin in dapper (gnome)? Last time I tried kwin in gnome was in debian a while back and it was hopeless but in dapper it's running perfectly and not a single crash so far. The kwin composite manager is so much better.
http://img424.imageshack.us/img424/8443/dapper8hc.th.png (http://img424.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dapper8hc.png)
This is VERY interesting I must say! How are you finding kompmgr btw, I'm finding it a little unstable with shadows, pretty bad for watching vid's with anything except totem (which we know anyway right?), I seem to get lots of random slowdown at times :( ur using the l8st nv drivers? what card? too many questions? btw what windeco is tat your using?!

end of questions! btw i'm using an fx5950, finding kompmgr not quite there yet :/ but v close!

[fabs0028]

Hey everyone
Take some minutes and read it so you can see that maybe in a short term we'll have a better x server ;)

News of Xgl (http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2006-January/011922.html)

Poofyhairguy i think it will please you :)
Cu everyone ;)

[fannymites]

Ok, some answers to Paulus' questions.
Remember this is on dapper with with kde 3.5.
The windeco is Suse2 (apt-get install kwin-style-suse2 if using dapper).
kompmgr has been very stable so far, still haven't had a single crash or any display problems.
I'm using an unsupported card and to my suprise it is running pretty snappy.
The only time I've had slowdown issues is when using fully transparent active and inactive windows with a lot of open windows but even then it is still usable.
Not had any problems with video in mplayer or totem, it gets a little jerky in kaffiene.
The only really notable problems I have had is that kde based apps weren't showing in the system tray which I solved by running adding kwin --replace as a startup program in System>Preferences>Sessions and setting the priority to 200 to make sure it is the last thing loaded.
The other problem is that the shadow settings keep changing by themselves but I'm also getting that in suse, in which I'm only using kde so it's nothing to do with running kwin in gnome.

I wasn't even expecting kwin's transparency/shadows to work in gnome, I only wanted to use kwin because of it's window placement settings.
I'm now using kwin in breezy gnome also, unfortunately I don't get the transparent window borders there cos it's kde 3.4.2.

[curtis]

Hey everyone
Take some minutes and read it so you can see that maybe in a short term we'll have a better x server ;)

News of Xgl (http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2006-January/011922.html)

Poofyhairguy i think it will please you :)
Cu everyone ;)
Great, nice to see it is still being worked on.

[poofyhairguy]

Hey everyone
Take some minutes and read it so you can see that maybe in a short term we'll have a better x server ;)

Well it exists, so yeah its here in the short term. As far as it being the default, I say two years.


Poofyhairguy i think it will please you :)


It does. Something to compile. I will make a guide if it will work on Breezy.

[poofyhairguy]

Here is a neat screenshot I took of xcompmgr and transset running in Xgl:

http://img493.imageshack.us/img493/5184/xgl29xd.jpg

[Footer]

Is that the Nautilus file browser?

[grendelkhan]

how'd you get xgl to compile? I've had zero luck with this.

[jannol]

poofyhairguy very cool, but what is xgl really? is it some hack to xorg or is it standalone?

[poofyhairguy]

Is that the Nautilus file browser?

Yes.

[poofyhairguy]

how'd you get xgl to compile? I've had zero luck with this.

Its the repo Xgl. I installed Dapper to mix it with the recently released glxcompmgr (which I got to compile but so far I can't control).

I'm going to wait till the newest code hits the cvs before I try to compile it again. Apparently it needs some immediate work.

[poofyhairguy]

poofyhairguy very cool, but what is xgl really? is it some hack to xorg or is it standalone?

Hack to Xorg for now. Here is more info:

http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=172800&threshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=104&mode=thread&cid=14382851

http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=172800&threshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=104&mode=thread&cid=14383213

http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=172800&threshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=104&mode=thread&cid=14383009

[jannol]

that was really interesting to read but I'll wait for a while more, maybe I try this when dapper becomes official, I got everything workin in breezy and I also got the memory leak to a minimum, I don't actully know if it was because of one small stuff I got from a novell linux dev but it seems to help

sudo chown <user> /usr/local/bin/xcompmgr

or maybe

sudo chown <user> /usr/bin/xcompmgr

for some

replace user with your own username

Since that I have run xcompmgr about 2 days before it shuts off and computer gets slow as hell but then in a few minutes I start xcompmgr again and all is good.

[Gray.]

I showed this to my friend today and he is now the proud owner of a new Ubuntu PC. I feel so happy :D

One problem though is that sometimes when I maximise windows, they overlap the top and bottom dock-bar-things (looks like fullscreen but still a window). Anyone know what to do?

[jannol]

it easily have that effect, one of my friends instantly said, "I WANT THAT" and even if I tried to explain all about not stable yet etc etc and also I know he has alot of other needs but now he has ubuntu and so far I have managed to help out with all of his comp. needs as eg. remote music server from an old DELLLLL laptop with vnc, video editing, music editing, tv-out on the remote comp. etc.
I told him to shutdown xcompmgr when using kino since then it crashes easily.

[poofyhairguy]

I showed this to my friend today and he is now the proud owner of a new Ubuntu PC. I feel so happy :D

Nice


One problem though is that sometimes when I maximise windows, they overlap the top and bottom dock-bar-things (looks like fullscreen but still a window). Anyone know what to do?

Its easy to fix. Keep using one command till it works:

killall gnome-panel

[Gray.]

Thanks for that. :D

[Squalor]

Here is a neat screenshot I took of xcompmgr and transset running in Xgl:[/IMG]

May I ask how did you do that? When using this command:

Xglx :1 -ac -screen 640x480

the only thing I get is a pointer and black-white background. :confused:

[fabs0028]

I 'm not sure but you should be able to launch programs in it by typing

DISPLAY=:1 before any command.
So the graphical interface will launch in the xgl server not in your standard xorg

EDIT:
you must also do export DISPLAY=:1 and then for example launch gnome-session all this in a terminal.

[fabs0028]

Well all listening about xgl made me wanna compile it
As far i have a problem on the configure it seems to have some problems with the x prototypes :
checking for XSERVER... configure: error: Package requirements (randrproto renderproto fixesproto damageproto xextproto xfont xproto xtrans xau compositeproto resourceproto recordproto xkbfile) were not met.


But i checked and in installed everything with apt. I 'm still on breezy so maybe it is not possible to compile it on but i really doubt that.

Maybe i miss something here.
An idea here?
Thanx a lot for your help.

By the way my configure command follows the one told by david r on the mailing list :

./configure --enable-xglserver --enable-glx --enable-xkb --with-mesa-source=/home/fab/compil/Mesa-6.4.1/src/


Thanx :)

[fog]

May I ask how did you do that? When using this command:

Xglx :1 -ac -screen 640x480

the only thing I get is a pointer and black-white background. :confused:
After this, open another terminal and give:
DISPLAY=":1"
then in the same terminal, give something...
nautilus
That's it.

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/8815/screenshot2bf.th.jpg (http://img411.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot2bf.jpg)

[poofyhairguy]

But i checked and in installed everything with apt. I 'm still on breezy so maybe it is not possible to compile it on but i really doubt that.


Thats what I determined. It might be possible but so is Linux from scratch but I will never do that!

Basically I could not get it to run in Breezy. In fact, the only distro I know of with all the dependancies is Gentoo.

So I installed Dapper to use the Xgl from its repos (that was added after I made Mr. Stone mad one day) so I could play with the glxcompmgr released recently.

Honestly the Xgl is not too exciting on its own. Its the compmgrs that make it fun.

I will try again to compile a new Xgl from the recent code when it actually enters the CVS. From what I read, many fixes will be added in the next couple of days.

[Squalor]

After this, open another terminal and give:
DISPLAY=":1"
then in the same terminal, give something...
nautilus
That's it.

Thank you for your help.

Does anyone know where to get glxcompmgr? Does anyone have a DEB? :confused:

[poofyhairguy]

Does anyone know where to get glxcompmgr? Does anyone have a DEB? :confused:

I have been trying, but it takes a lot to get it to work. I got it to compile into a deb with checkinstall, but I don't want to release it because it just doesn't work. As it is it's almost obsolete because there is plans to replace it by its creator. Maybe if Mr. Stone puts it in the repos we will play with it, otherwise I will keep trying.

[Iandefor]

Here's another testimonial: I got my new computer up and running. On an NVIDIA Geforce 6100 with the latest NVIDIA drivers, this works like a charm. I notice absolutely no difference in speed, at all. Only problem is, I lost my bottom panel, but I can live with that.

[raggamuffin]

thanks a lot poofyhairguy...worked like a charm right away for me (nvidia card)...

http://img497.imageshack.us/img497/5161/snapshot21yi.th.jpg (http://img497.imageshack.us/my.php?image=snapshot21yi.jpg)

[poofyhairguy]

thanks a lot poofyhairguy...worked like a charm right away for me (nvidia card)...

Welcome to modern times.

[kiddo]

Dear fellow ubuntuers,

this is just a testimonial to say that I am using the nvidia 1.0-8178 (http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_1.0-8178.html) drivers (manually installed) on my breezy machine right now. The rumors were true: they are ultra stable. I've been running this for three days and xcompmgr has not crashed once. I got my dropshadows, I feel alive again!

For thou who has already used their installer, you know that you must sudo apt-get remove nvidia-glx nvidia-settings, especially nvidia-settings since it is integrated now.

Then, the only tricky part is that you must work around GCC. Because our kernel is compiled with GCC 3.4, but we have GCC 4.0 as default for compiling. What you need to do is this:
sudo apt-get install gcc gcc-3.4

Then, each time, before you run the nvidia installer (make sure it's executable):
CC=gcc-3.4
export CC

The driver should then work fine. And this time, the gnome logout dialog even works! ZOMG!



I'm amazed by the nvidia guys. Please please, someone, give me the email of Jen-Hsun Huang (http://nvidia.com/object/bio_huang.html) so I can tell the upper management how I love the fact that they support linux so actively. I'm dead serious. I know the developer knows I love him, so the ones I want to reach (I'm outside the US) are the "management" guys, they're the ones who need to have feedback.

[Josef K.]

this is just a testimonial to say that I am using the nvidia 1.0-8178 (http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_1.0-8178.html) drivers (manually installed) on my breezy machine right now. The rumors were true: they are ultra stable. I've been running this for three days and xcompmgr has not crashed once. I got my dropshadows, I feel alive again!


is there a deb-package somewhere out there?! :D

[Azriphale]

I don't know of a .deb packaged nVidia driver, but installing the driver manually is really easy.

If I remember correctly, these are the steps I followed to install my previous drivers (I have not yet installed the 8178, I'm still on manually installed 7676)

I am not entirely certain of these steps, I did this a fair while ago. If it fails, you should be able to switch your xorg driver back to the "nv" driver to use X.

you need to have the linux-headers installed (and any specific to your kernel, i.e. i need linux-headers-686-smp)
you need gcc-3.4
you need to REMOVE nvidia-glx
REMOVE nvidia-settings
REMOVE linux-restricted-modules (whichever variation you have installed)

hit ctrl+alt+backspace
hit ctrl+alt+F1 to get to a virtual console and log in

change to the directory where the nvidia driver you downloaded from nvidia is on you drive

make sure the nvidia driver file downloaded from nvidia is executable


cd ~/Download
chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-8178-pkg1.run
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop
CC=gcc-3.4 sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-8178-pkg1.run

change the driver in your xorg.conf from "nv" to "nvidia"

I think that should do it.


By the way, in the ATI vs nVidia thing going on:
I have had trouble with every ATI driver I have ever encountered, on every platform, incl Linux and Windows. I have found the ATI driver to be fairly unstable on both these platforms. On both these platforms, I have found nVidia to be very stable, easy to configure, and provide good performance.

[Josef K.]

meantime I've found them here (http://people.debian.org/~rdonald/index.php)
but seems to be for debian, so I guess I'll use them just this time, then remove links from sources.list... or perhaps I should just be patient and wait a bit :)
I was looking for deb file not to mess up the system with non packaged stuff (next time nvidia will release fresh driver (2 weeks? :rolleyes:) I wanna be able to upgrade again via apt as usual :))

[Josef K.]

meantime I've found them here (http://www.khensu.org/index.php?itemid=135)
but seems to be for debian, so I guess I'll use them just this time, then remove links from sources.list... or perhaps I should just be patient and wait a bit :)
I was looking for deb file not to mess up the system with non packaged stuff (next time nvidia will release fresh driver (2 weeks? :rolleyes:) I wanna be able to upgrade again via apt as usual :))

PS.
TKS for the HOWTO :D
about ATI: don't know about linux, but on windows ATI driver for my old radeon 8500 used to be perfect

[Azriphale]

Maybe ATI just doesn't like me. I used to have problems. I don't know about their newer Windows drivers, but I do know that nVidia has far better Linux support.

Whatever, I am very happy with my nVidia GeForce 6200 TC, despite the fact that it is the lower of the 6xxx series. And I will continue to buy nVidia products, based on their Linux support alone. Along with outstanding products.

I believe that only nVidia cards are certified to work with 3d studio max. No ATI cards. Not that it bothers me, seeing as I dont use 3ds max. I use blender, for a few reasons. It seems a lot more simple (in the interface), it runs in Linux, and its Free and Open Source Software.

If you're more comfortable using a .deb for the drivers, then its better to do it that way. I don't mind killing X and reinstalling my nVidia drivers with every kernel update. I have to compile my ALSA audio drivers anyway. (They lied when they said that hda-intel ALSA support works out of the box in Breezy. It should, but it doesn't always)

[oobuntoo]

Poofyhairguy, when you had xgl running, is moving window around as smooth as on OSX? Are windows right and left edges still breaking up?

[poofyhairguy]

Poofyhairguy, when you had xgl running, is moving window around as smooth as on OSX? Are windows right and left edges still breaking up?

Lets just put it this way- the Xgl is not magic. It still needs a lot of work.

[Cybolic]

Thanks for the guide!
Although it's not that difficult a process, it's nice to have a step-by-step guide to check one haven't forgotten anything.

Since I used a bit different version of the toggle-script, I thought I'd post it here. Functionally they are equal, I just think my version is a bit cleaner:

#!/bin/sh

if [ -z "$(ps -A | grep -i xcompmgr)" ]; then
xcompmgr -fF -I0.06 -O0.03 -D6 -cC -t-6 -l-7 -r6 -o.40 &
killall gnome-panel
else
kill -9 $(ps -A | grep -i xcomp | cut -d\ -f1)
killall gnome-panel
fi
There, you also got my settings as a bonus ;)

Other than that, does anyone other than me have problems with Leafpad, Mousepad and GEdit when scrolling? ...it seems the GtkTextview isn't too happy about the Composite extension.... that's my guess anyhow....
Besides that problem (and occasional X-crashing when doing the "zoom"-trick (Ctrl+Alt+[-/+])) it works perfectly.... very nice, very smooth and very very fast. :D

[garba]

hello! forgive my ignorance, but do you need xcompmgr to be running to get accelerated windows rendering? this seems to be the case here, xcompmgr -a works fine and prevents windows from leaving a trail when moving them across the screen... still I would live to know what EXA is good for, enabling it by no means make things faster for me, even when using shadows and translucencies...

[MistaED]

Hello,

I've been using xcompmgr, it's quite awesome. I've tried the kwin compositor one back in 3.4 and it didn't work for me with shadows. I thought it was due to it being a WIP but 3.5 doesn't do it either. I am using the latest NVIDIA driver (8178) and it works fine wth transparencies and I have all the options enabled for it to allow renderaccel & glx with composite, very fast. Just none of those damn sexy shadows! :) My video card is a 6800GT 256mb btw.

The shadows work on my friend's PC with the CPU-driven mode (SLOW), and probably on mine that way but I haven't tried. I've tried searching around for anyone with the same problem but I can't seem to find any posts on the issue. Xcompmgr has no problems with shadows but I wanted to use kwin's compositor due to all the stability claims.

Thanks for your help.
-MistaED

[Mr_J_]

This worked fine for me with my Dual monitor and Nvidia 6600GT

[Ainvar]

I have a Dell Precision Workstation M70 with the NVIDIA Quadro FX Go 1400 video card 256megs of ram.

I tried the stock nvidia drivers that are in the repos for Ubuntu 5.10 and then installed the latest and greatest using the NVIDIA installer that is a page or so back on this thread.

I am having great success as long as I dont reboot to many times. If so I get a normal bootup with a very very very brief glimpse of the NVIDIA logo screen going into xwindows and the the screen does a very shallow light up and then cuts off and repeats until I manually power off the laptop. I cant kill xwindows I cant switch to a diffrent console and I am not able to tell it to reboot with ctrl-alt-del. If I reinstall the drivers they work fine with the settings in this thread until I reboot a couple of more times.

My second issue is this, when I go to a diffrent page in mozilla 1.5 my mouse cursor flickers really really really bad and it does it on a few other applications also like evolution and thunderbird. gaim 2.0 is ok and has very little flickering.

here is my xorg.conf attached to this post and if you need any other info please let me know.


I do want to say that your howto is really really cool and makes me a sad panda knowing the my personal laptop a dell i6000d with an ati x300 128meg card cant do this hardly at all. What is ATI thinking when they make there drivers??

But I just wanted to thank you for this guide plus a few others I have seen on the forums and your blog, very informative and very easy to follow.

http://www.smugglingyoyos.net/ubuntuforums/xorg.conf.gz

[piedamaro]

Guys....don't know....read my posts.

[RaptorRaider]

Slightly offtopic perhaps, but is the movie in the startpost working at all?
I can't get it to work under Windows (I'm at work) with WMP, Quicktime and WinDVD?

Also do you have any idea when the newer ATI cards will work?

[jannol]

well, vlc is the player in win that can play it, it doesn't always work in wmp, I don't know why really but it probably has todo with many things. So you could just try installing vlc and play it if you want. I am zorry for the inconvenience.

[poofyhairguy]

Thanks for the guide!
Although it's not that difficult a process, it's nice to have a step-by-step guide to check one haven't forgotten anything.

Since I used a bit different version of the toggle-script, I thought I'd post it here. Functionally they are equal, I just think my version is a bit cleaner:

#!/bin/sh

if [ -z "$(ps -A | grep -i xcompmgr)" ]; then
xcompmgr -fF -I0.06 -O0.03 -D6 -cC -t-6 -l-7 -r6 -o.40 &
killall gnome-panel
else
kill -9 $(ps -A | grep -i xcomp | cut -d\ -f1)
killall gnome-panel
fi
There, you also got my settings as a bonus ;)

Thanks for the code. It does seem a little more simple.


Other than that, does anyone other than me have problems with Leafpad, Mousepad and GEdit when scrolling? ...it seems the GtkTextview isn't too happy about the Composite extension.... that's my guess anyhow....
Besides that problem (and occasional X-crashing when doing the "zoom"-trick (Ctrl+Alt+[-/+])) it works perfectly.... very nice, very smooth and very very fast. :D

Yeah, scrolling plus a few other things lead to composite artifacts. Those will just to be worked out over a few years. I was using OSX for four days and I noticed many composite artifacts in Tiger- its obviously a hard bunch of bugs to squash.

[poofyhairguy]

hello! forgive my ignorance, but do you need xcompmgr to be running to get accelerated windows rendering? this seems to be the case here, xcompmgr -a works fine and prevents windows from leaving a trail when moving them across the screen... still I would live to know what EXA is good for, enabling it by no means make things faster for me, even when using shadows and translucencies...

EXA is the acceration needed to make Xcompmgr use your hardware effectively.

If it does not speed things up for you no big deal, it was not ready in Breezy. Only Dapper has working EXA.

[poofyhairguy]

I have a Dell Precision Workstation M70 with the NVIDIA Quadro FX Go 1400 video card 256megs of ram.

I tried the stock nvidia drivers that are in the repos for Ubuntu 5.10 and then installed the latest and greatest using the NVIDIA installer that is a page or so back on this thread.

I am having great success as long as I dont reboot to many times. If so I get a normal bootup with a very very very brief glimpse of the NVIDIA logo screen going into xwindows and the the screen does a very shallow light up and then cuts off and repeats until I manually power off the laptop. I cant kill xwindows I cant switch to a diffrent console and I am not able to tell it to reboot with ctrl-alt-del. If I reinstall the drivers they work fine with the settings in this thread until I reboot a couple of more times.

That sounds like a bug with the Nvidia drivers. You might want to email them.


My second issue is this, when I go to a diffrent page in mozilla 1.5 my mouse cursor flickers really really really bad and it does it on a few other applications also like evolution and thunderbird. gaim 2.0 is ok and has very little flickering.

Use a hardware accerated mouse.

Add this to the device part of your xorg.conf:

Option "HWcursor"


I do want to say that your howto is really really cool and makes me a sad panda knowing the my personal laptop a dell i6000d with an ati x300 128meg card cant do this hardly at all. What is ATI thinking when they make there drivers??

But I just wanted to thank you for this guide plus a few others I have seen on the forums and your blog, very informative and very easy to follow.

ATI is thinking they don't care about the Linux desktop. They are more in bed with MS than Nvidia is (I think because their Directx performance is far better than their opengl performance).

And I'm glad my guides and blog helps. I just want to so what I can to give back to the community.

[Azriphale]

Woohoo!!!

I got xgl to compile. That was a good few hours of messing about. Mostly trying to look for one damn dep in the freedesktop cvs. Grrrrr.

Now, say I have Xgl running on display :1, how do I get Gnome to run in Xgl?

[poofyhairguy]

Woohoo!!!

I got xgl to compile. That was a good few hours of messing about. Mostly trying to look for one damn dep in the freedesktop cvs. Grrrrr.

Now, say I have Xgl running on display :1, how do I get Gnome to run in Xgl?

WOW! You got the newest code to compile? Care to share some secrets?

Here is my secret that you want:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=504974&postcount=6

Now yours please!

[Onos]

Quick question: I am using XFCE without any KDE/Gnome stuff.

How do I do I get into the XFCE composite manager? (and adjust my transparency, etc. ) ?

[Azriphale]

poofyhairguy:

I grabbed the latest from cvs. I think it is newer than that tarball that was released. At least, some of the xgl files were only 4 days old, the tarball is about 8 now.

I followed some instructions on freedesktop.org:

For glitz and glitzinfo, i went here:
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software_2fXgl

then I followed these following instructions to compile everything needed to compile the xserver module

I followed these instructions to compile everything except the xserver package (which is what contains Xgl, as you undoubtedly know). Aside from the packages listed here, you also need xres:
cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.freedesktop.org:/cvs/xlibs co XRes
It can be compiled in the same way as the rest of them.

http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software_2fXserver_2fInstallGuide

Then, for xserver, I went back here:

http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software_2fXgl

I ran autogen.sh like so:
./autogen.sh --prefix=/opt/fdo --enable-composite --enable-xglserver

I then ran it like so:
/opt/fdo/bin/Xgl :1 -ac -screen 1024x768 & xterm -display :1

Sorry about not going into much detail... If that doesn't work for you, I'll have a look at mine when I get home. I did make a couple of notes about how I did it, but I think all that was in my notes was that XRes was needed.

I'm going to try to compile it without doing the rest of X with it when I get home too.

I feel stupid now, with not setting DISPLAY=:1 before running stuff. :)
./Xglx :1 -ac -screen 640x480
DISPLAY=:1 nautilus
DISPLAY=:1 metacity
DISPLAY=:1 gnome-panel
DISPLAY=:1 xcompmgr -c
DISPLAY=:1 transset
DISPLAY=:1 gnome-settings-daemon

Can you perhaps tell me why I have Xgl instead of Xglx? I didn't think much about it until I saw that post....

and for the cvs glxcompmgr:
cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.freedesktop.org:/cvs/xorg co app/glxcompmgr

it looks like the mesa patch needed is with it there...

[vayu]

Quick question: I am using XFCE without any KDE/Gnome stuff.

How do I do I get into the XFCE composite manager? (and adjust my transparency, etc. ) ?

I can't remember where I found this stuff, probably on the XFCE site but here's what I have and it works well:

play around with the values in this file:

~/.config/xfce4/xfwm4/xfwm4rc

move_opacity=72
resize_opacity=60
panel_opacity=80

I believe 100 is opaque and less is towards transparent

Looking around I found this file:

/usr/share/xfwm4/defaults

I haven't played with it at all. There are some interesting shadow items, but based on the shadows I'm getting, these settings aren't making sense. I would try putting values from there into the local file and then modifying them.

For me the KDE compositing is the nicest looking and the most tailorable. I really like the transparent unfocused windows. And the shadows are adjustable. I haven't found these items in XFCE. The KDE compositing (in 3.5) is just unstable enough to keep me away from it. Xcompmgr and GNOME just aren't stable enough for me. XFCE while the least flashy is very stable for me.

[Azriphale]

ATI is thinking they don't care about the Linux desktop. They are more in bed with MS than Nvidia is (I think because their Directx performance is far better than their opengl performance).

I don't think nvidia is exactly in bed with MS at all. Sure, the nvidia linux drivers lag the windows drivers a little, but not by very much usually. Personally I think their linux driver is outstanding.

Their current Linux driver is 8178, windows is 8198. This is a lot close than they were a little while ago. It looks to me like they actually do want to give proper support for linux.

There are a few little things I don't like, such as you can't have a DFP as the primary monitor over a CRT (well, in my case an analogue LCD) in TwinView (which made me run both monitors analogue...). But my DFP seems to not like 75Hz when running digital anyway, so I can live with it running from the analogue d-sub.

[Cybolic]

Just a quick tip:

If you really can't live with killing the gnome-panel and the trouble that brings (a pain if you have lots of apps in the tray) then another way to get maximising to work again is to kill Metacity instead.

In our little toggle script, replace the lines that read
killall gnome-panel
with
killall metacity

this way your windows may get re-arranged slighly, but you won't loose your tray apps - good news for users of Gaim, Amarok, Azureus and a lot of other programs ;).

[poofyhairguy]

Just a quick tip:

If you really can't live with killing the gnome-panel and the trouble that brings (a pain if you have lots of apps in the tray) then another way to get maximising to work again is to kill Metacity instead.

In our little toggle script, replace the lines that read
killall gnome-panel
with
killall metacity

this way your windows may get re-arranged slighly, but you won't loose your tray apps - good news for users of Gaim, Amarok, Azureus and a lot of other programs ;).

Killing Metacity is always a good idea.

So is replacing it....hmm....

[Azriphale]

Have you started playing with Xgl yet :)

And on the subject of WMs, what would you suggest. When I was running Hoary, I tried replacing Metacity with E16, Openbox, xf4wm?, Fluxbox and various others. Can't remember if I tried E17 tho....

I eventualy went back to metacity because it it seemed a whole lot more stable than any of the others. The others crashed at some stage after installing them, but not Metacity.

What do you suggest I replace it with? As I said, I last tried with Hoary, so it was a fair while ago...

And while I'm at it, I'm going to look at KDE 3.5 and even see if KDE 4 will compile. Been reading some good stuff about KDE these days.

Can I use KDEs WM for Gnome?

[Cybolic]

It is quite possible to run KDEs window manager (kwin) while running Gnome, but there will be little graphical glitches. I don't the glitches are because of running it from Gnome, I think they are bugs in the kwin compositor.

If you want to try for yourself (and have your unfocused windows become transparent ;) ), you can run kwin like this
kwin --replace but be aware that focusing the Gnome panels will be odd, there will be minor graphical bugs (missing parts of windows and graphics not updated some times), but it will look cool :cool:.

If you don't have kwin installed, type the following in a terminal:
sudo apt-get install kwin

When you want to go back (if you do), the way I do it is to add the "Run a program"-applet to your panel and first run killall kwin and then metacity (or xfwm4 or whatever you want ;) ) - that way you don't end up with running your wm from a terminal.

[Azriphale]

I probably have an updated method of getting Xglx up and running, using most of your existing Xorg packages. I'll start writing it up, its much easier and much quicker. Most of it is getting the xorg dev files from apt, then there are two things to compile - glitz (the one in the repos is too old) and xserver.

[EDIT] No.. No. I just got a compile error:
bigreq.c:41:38: X11/extensions/bigreqstr.h: No such file or directory

Lets have a look for it, then.

[EDIT] Got it. Trouble is, I'm busy using apt to fetch KDE 3.5 (Just to look! I swear!) Although, it can resume, so it will now die.
I'm sure synaptic isn't supposed to disappear when I press the cancel download button. Oh well. I hope my KDE progress remains intact.

[EDIT] erg. More missing deps :P

[EDIT] Ok. I am having problems getting the dep GL/internal/glcore.h

It is in the package mesa-swrast-source but it gets put in a funny place (/usr/share/mesa-source) and if you link the .h files to where they should be in /usr/include/GL it gives other errors like
g_render.c: In function `__glXDisp_TexCoord1sv':
g_render.c:599: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type


Can anybody help me with this?

[EDIT]
Solved by not configuring xserver with the --enable-glx command, but only using --enable-xglxserver

[Azriphale]

HOWTO (incomplete): Compile Xgl from the freedesktop.org CVS to run witg your current Xorg libraries.

I've never done the howto thing before, so please bear with me. Any comments are welcome.

Should I be starting a new thread for this....?

-------------------------------------------

As you may or may not be aware, I got Xgl to compile again last night, this time using the Xorg stuff that came with breezy rather than compiling all the xserver deps again.

I got the source from the freedesktop.org CVS server:

cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.freedesktop.org:/cvs/xserver co xserver

I will post all the deps and a bit of a howto when I get home (I don't have the list of deps at work). Right now, however, I can tell you how to find the deps if you want to try compiling before I post them (and when I do post them, I might not list them all cuz some were alerady installed on my machine, and I'm not sure which ones exactly).


Before you can compile xserver, you need to fetch and compile glitz (the version in the Breezy repos is too old):


$ cvs -d:pserver:anoncvs@cvs.freedesktop.org:/cvs/cairo co glitz glitzinfo

$ pushd glitz
$ ./autogen.sh
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ popd

$ pushd glitzinfo
$ make -f Makefile.glx
$ ./glitzinfo
$ popd


glitzinfo should report some info about available features, drawable formats and surface formats. The following set of features are important and if one of them is missing it is likely that it will give you performance problems.

texture rectangle
texture border clamp
multitexture
texture environment combine

Now you can start with xserver.....


$ pushd xserver
$ autogen.sh --enable-xglxserver
$ make


We don't want to install it (it could (will) break your current xserver from the repos).

When configure gives you the following message

randrproto renderproto fixesproto damageproto xextproto xfont xproto xtrans xau compositeproto resourceproto recordproto xkbfile

Search for packages that contain x11proto in the name (by using synaptic, for example), and install:
x11proto-randr-dev
etc.

Some of them are not the x11proto packages, so if you can't find one there, search for, say, xfont. This will come up with (i think) libxfont-dev.

You can check which are missing before you look for them all by running:
$ pkg-config --cflags randrproto renderproto fixesproto damageproto xextproto xfont xproto xtrans xau compositeproto resourceproto recordproto xkbfile

pkg-config will complain about the missing packages, then you can start looking for them in the repos.

Later on, configure will probably complain again in a similar fashion when looking for the packages required to build the xglserver component. You can search for those deps in the repos in a similar fashion to above.

Then we can start the build process. There are still a few missing deps that configure does not pick up, but they can be found using the packages.ubuntu.com resource. make will complain about a certain header file that is missing, which you can search for on packages.ubuntu.com (search for files inside packages). Then just apt-get install the package it comes up with. You will probably have to do this a few times.

Once it is built, you should end up with an executable in the hw/xgl/glx called Xglx

cd to that directory (i.e. $ cd xserver/hw/xgl/glx) and run it with
$ ./Xglx :1 -ac -screen 1024x768
or whatever resolution you want.
If you leave off the -ac flag, it is likely that clients will not be able to connect to the xgl server. Or perhaps the server won't start. I can't remember..

Then you can:

$ export DISPLAY=:1
$ nautilus &
$ metacity &
$ xcompmgr -c &
$ transset &
$ gnome-panel &
$ gnome-settings-daemon &


I was haveing some warnings when starting some of those. I'll post them later. I don't know what to do about them. Maybe somebody can help me...

Can somebody point me in the direction of glxcompmgr? I got the source from the freedesktop.org cvs, but I can't compile it cuz I need glcore.h

I'll post what I think are the deps later whan I get home.

[Azriphale]

Something is wrong somewhere. Kwin's composite manager thingy is not playing nicely with Xgl.

I'm pretty sure all my problems are related to not being able to --enable-glx
Which means, i think, that it was not actually using hardware rendering.. perhaps..

Anyway, i'm through with this for now. Unless anybody has any suggestions.

[limit223]

KDE 3.5, Dapper Flight 2, ATI Radeon X600 RV380 without xcompmgr part from the guide (in KDE is useless)...
That's the first time I see tranparency working on my video card ! Thanks Xorg !
Forget about ati driver!

[poofyhairguy]

pkg-config will complain about the missing packages, then you can start looking for them in the repos.


Thats a wall I hit. I was resorting to alienizing RPMs to get all the dependancies.

[poofyhairguy]

Something is wrong somewhere. Kwin's composite manager thingy is not playing nicely with Xgl.

I'm pretty sure all my problems are related to not being able to --enable-glx
Which means, i think, that it was not actually using hardware rendering.. perhaps..

Anyway, i'm through with this for now. Unless anybody has any suggestions.

Xgl is meant to work with either Luminocity, Glxcompmgr, or 'Compiz' which is due in Feburary.

But thanks for the direction so far. I think the best long term solution is to bug Mr. Stone to put it in the repos. I plan to start a campaign when Compiz is released (to get both of them).

Be ready.

[poofyhairguy]

It is quite possible to run KDEs window manager (kwin) while running Gnome, but there will be little graphical glitches. I don't the glitches are because of running it from Gnome, I think they are bugs in the kwin compositor.

If you want to try for yourself (and have your unfocused windows become transparent ;) ), you can run kwin like this
kwin --replace but be aware that focusing the Gnome panels will be odd, there will be minor graphical bugs (missing parts of windows and graphics not updated some times), but it will look cool :cool:.

If you don't have kwin installed, type the following in a terminal:
sudo apt-get install kwin

When you want to go back (if you do), the way I do it is to add the "Run a program"-applet to your panel and first run killall kwin and then metacity (or xfwm4 or whatever you want ;) ) - that way you don't end up with running your wm from a terminal.

Here is a full guide to make the changes stay that way:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=648604#post648604

[Azriphale]

pkg-config will complain about the missing packages, then you can start looking for them in the repos.

Thats a wall I hit. I was resorting to alienizing RPMs to get all the dependancies.


Search for packages that contain x11proto in the name (by using synaptic, for example), and install:
x11proto-randr-dev
etc.

Some of them are not the x11proto packages, so if you can't find one there, search for, say, xfont. This will come up with (i think) libxfont-dev.


Did that not work for you?
Ok, fine, I promise I'll post the deps later. Sorry I didn't do it earlier.

A couple of questions:
Is Luminocity in the Breezy repos? Or, better yet, can i get the latest source somewhere?
And how the hell do I compile glxcompmgr?
Its also complaining about the missing glcore.h

Otherwise, Kwin v3.5 actually works pretty well with gnome, I think. I haven't used any previos versions, but I have had no problems that I can think of now.

If you don't feel like compiling it, you can get Breezy repos from www.kde.org
I lie. Information can be found at http://kubuntu.org/announcements/kde-35.php
The repo is:
deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/kde35 breezy main
which you can just add to the end of your sources.list

You can add the key that the packages have been signed with by doing this:
wget http://people.ubuntu.com/~jriddell/kubuntu-packages-jriddell-key.gpg
sudo apt-key add kubuntu-packages-jriddell-key.gpg

I've not looked at kde4 yet because its probably not in a position to be looked at in much other than at source code level at the moment, which is no fun. But development goes on, and from what I have read, kde4 will be a whole lot better than kde has been before.

We're trying stuff out in Luminocity and will be rolling them into Metacity
DAMN!
I want nothing more than to get rid of metacity with a (good looking) stable replacement.

[Jeff250]

Great guide. I was wondering: How can I disable the default Metacity window maximize/minimize effects? I know that I can using gconf-editor and toggling /apps/metacity/general/reduced_resources, but this also enables wireframe windows when you're moving them, which is pretty ugly looking. The default metacity behavior when maximizing/minimizing windows is interfering with my effects. :-?

[Azriphale]

Unfortunately, one of the many, many shortcomings of Metacity is that, well, basically, you can't. You either have to use the reduced-resources mode thing that you mentioned, or get rid of metacity altogether. You may want to look at this guide to using enlightenment instead of metacity. I have not tested it lately, so I don't know how well it works... Here is the guide:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=54476&highlight=enlightened+gnome

Or you can look at using kwin instead of metacity:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=648604#post648604

[poofyhairguy]

Is Luminocity in the Breezy repos? Or, better yet, can i get the latest source somewhere?


I while ago I made a guide. I wonder if it still works:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=45202

[poofyhairguy]

Did that not work for you?
Ok, fine, I promise I'll post the deps later. Sorry I didn't do it earlier.


If you go that far, please take it all into a new guide.

Add to the series.

[Azriphale]

Thanks for the Luminocity guide, I'll give it a try later.

And in a few hours, you can expect to see a guide on getting Xgl set up in Breezy. I still don't have hw acceleration working, i dont think, and I need to iron out a couple of problems I was having yesterday first. And I only get home in about 4 hours.

[tseliot]

I have a question: Is it possible to have transparent menus (e.g. the "Applications" menu) in GNOME?
In KDE I can.

It's the only thing I miss from KDE.


Thanks in advance

P.S. This is a wonderful guide :)

[poofyhairguy]

I have a question: Is it possible to have transparent menus (e.g. the "Applications" menu) in GNOME?
In KDE I can.

It's the only thing I miss from KDE.


Thanks in advance

P.S. This is a wonderful guide :)

Thanks. That means a lot- I consider you to be the best guide maker on the forum.

Yet I know no way to make the Gnome Menu's transparent. Until Gnome does this stuff without hacks....it might not be able to.

[tseliot]

Thanks. That means a lot- I consider you to be the best guide maker on the forum.

Yet I know no way to make the Gnome Menu's transparent. Until Gnome does this stuff without hacks....it might not be able to.
No, problem. If I find a way to do it I'll post it here.
Thanks again

[tseliot]

Have a look at the image at the end of the webpage http://freedesktop.org/~keithp/screenshots/

[Rob2687]

I compiled xgl succesfully with that guide but there is no Xglx in the folder mentioned. O_o

edit: Nevermind.

[Azriphale]

is Xgl working for you?
To have Xglx, you need to ./configure (or ./autogen.sh) with the --enable-xglxserver, not just --enable-xgl-server.
You can use either, or both options.

[Rob2687]

I'm having a problem with the 'make' now...

Making all in .
make[4]: Entering directory `/home/robert/xserver/hw/xgl/glx'
if /bin/sh ../../../libtool --tag=CC --mode=compile gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I../../../include -I../../../hw/xgl/glx -I../../../hw/xgl -I../../../miext/damage -I../../../miext/shadow -I../../../Xext -I../../../record -I../../../render -I../../../randr -I../../../xfixes -I../../../damageext -I../../../composite -I../../../fb -I../../../mi -Wall -Wpointer-arith -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations -Wnested-externs -fno-strict-aliasing -D_BSD_SOURCE -DHAS_FCHOWN -DHAS_STICKY_DIR_BIT -I/usr/include/freetype2 -D_BSD_SOURCE -I../../../include -I../../../Xext -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/X11R6/include -O2 -march=pentium3m -funroll-loops -ffast-math -fomit-frame-pointer -fno-exceptions -MT xglx.lo -MD -MP -MF ".deps/xglx.Tpo" -c -o xglx.lo xglx.c; \
then mv -f ".deps/xglx.Tpo" ".deps/xglx.Plo"; else rm -f ".deps/xglx.Tpo"; exit 1; fi
gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I../../../include -I../../../hw/xgl/glx -I../../../hw/xgl -I../../../miext/damage -I../../../miext/shadow -I../../../Xext -I../../../record -I../../../render -I../../../randr -I../../../xfixes -I../../../damageext -I../../../composite -I../../../fb -I../../../mi -Wall -Wpointer-arith -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations -Wnested-externs -fno-strict-aliasing -D_BSD_SOURCE -DHAS_FCHOWN -DHAS_STICKY_DIR_BIT -I/usr/include/freetype2 -D_BSD_SOURCE -I../../../include -I../../../Xext -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/X11R6/include -O2 -march=pentium3m -funroll-loops -ffast-math -fomit-frame-pointer -fno-exceptions -MT xglx.lo -MD -MP -MF .deps/xglx.Tpo -c xglx.c -fPIC -DPIC -o .libs/xglx.o
In file included from ../../../include/dixfont.h:33,
from ../../../mi/mi.h:57,
from ../../../hw/xgl/xgl.h:43,
from xglx.h:29,
from xglx.c:26:
/usr/X11R6/include/X11/fonts/fontstruct.h:293:23: error: fontproto.h: No such file or directory
make[4]: *** [xglx.lo] Error 1
make[4]: Leaving directory `/home/robert/xserver/hw/xgl/glx'
make[3]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/robert/xserver/hw/xgl/glx'
make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/robert/xserver/hw/xgl'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/robert/xserver/hw'
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
robert@linux:~/xserver$

[Azriphale]

fontproto.h: No such file or directory


when I was having these, I looked on http://packages.ubuntu.com
you can search for files inside a package.

This one, I believe is in x11proto-fonts-dev

I'll attach a file that contains a list of deps for --enable-xglserver
I made it on a clean install, but running inside VMware, so there was no glx. So you may need a couple more deps than those in the list...

[Rob2687]

Yeah, I have all the x11proto* installed and the ones in the file you attached but it made no difference.

[Azriphale]

you definitely got all the x11proto* packages with -dev on the end?

output from packages.ubuntu.com

FILE
usr/include/X11/fonts/fontproto.h

PACKAGE
x11/x11proto-fonts-dev


make sure you install the development packages.

also try installing libxfont-dev

edit:
Three more _possible_ deps, but they are not the ones giving you that error, I am sure.
x11proto-gl-dev
x11proto-trap-dev
x11proto-xinerama-dev

[Rob2687]

Yeah, I have all that installed. I even tried the dapper x11proto-fonts-dev but it's still the same.

[Azriphale]

run this in the terminal:

$ sudo find / -name fontproto.h

Does it come up with "/usr/include/X11/fonts/fontproto.h"?

also, have you got this installed?
libfreetype6-dev

[Azriphale]

I just removed a package and its refusing to install again.

All I can suggest trying now is the guide over here:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=643822&postcount=385
it takes a while tho, it recompiles a whole lot of the X components.

I need to get some sleep too, its almost 1 in the morning now...

[Rob2687]

Yes and yes...

[Azriphale]

are you running configure with the flag --prefix=/some/path ?
If you are, you will need to compile and install xfont before xserver. If you are not, it should, I think, be working... the searching for missing files on packages.ubuntu.com worked for me....

[Azriphale]

try running configure with --prefix=/usr

I'll stick around for a few more minutes

Edit:
I hope that works for you, because now it is time for me to leave...

[Rob2687]

Still couldn't get it to work. Thanks for you help but I think I'll this again some other time.

[Jeff250]

Unfortunately, one of the many, many shortcomings of Metacity is that, well, basically, you can't. You either have to use the reduced-resources mode thing that you mentioned, or get rid of metacity altogether. You may want to look at this guide to using enlightenment instead of metacity. I have not tested it lately, so I don't know how well it works... Here is the guide:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=54476&highlight=enlightened+gnome

Or you can look at using kwin instead of metacity:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=648604#post648604

Thanks. I went with kwin, since it seemed to be a more safe option.

Just for anyone interested, these effects great with my mobile Intel i915 graphics and Dapper (except for it can get a little slow when too many windows are opened). All I had to go is enable exa and composite in my xorg.conf file and download and install the latest "common" and "i915" drivers from http://dri.freedesktop.org/snapshots/ .

[Carrots171]

Hi, I have the latest Nvidia drivers (8178 ), and everything is working perfectly -BUT- the "logout bug" is still there; when I log out it crashes. Is there any way to correct this problem? Thanks for the help!

[firehead]

great howto, but somehow something doesnt' work the same as before... but first things first:
2 days ago, xcompmgr was running on my laptop and i had perfect transparent windows under fluxbox (running on kubuntu) by just typing
xcompmgr -n
due to a little bit to much messing around with kernel configuration i decided to make a complete,neat reinstall of kubuntu, including the newest NVIDIA driver 8176 (used 7667 before) and the 2.6.12-10-686 kernel (...-386 before, and yes i'm using a 686 machine ;) ). and now i want transparency back. following poofyhairy's guide, i installed xcompmgr and transset-df (which i used before) and typed again xcompmgr -n and....nothing happened :(
now i can change opacity of single windows with transset, but every new window is totally opaque and all menues (incl. fluxbox menu) too. i'm totally sure, that i didn't have to write any script on my old system to get transparent consoles popping up, xcompmgr did it all by itself...
well maybe i forgot something:rolleyes: , but i have no idea what i could have done more before...please help me :D

[firehead]

*banging my head against the wall*
well 9 minutes later i solved the problem myself...sorry for bothering your thread poofy, but sometimes solving a problem is so simple, that i just don't see it...fluxbox has a menu for transparency, where everything can be set...which i just did ;)

a nice weekend to every1 who managed to get transparency working, and good luck to everybody else ;)

[jpkotta]

Has anyone tried using FVWM with xcompmgr? I'm afraid it's still unstable for me.

Steps to reproduce:
Run FVWM with a null config. Open an app, iconify it, and somehow remove the icon from view. The apps I was able to reproduce the problem with were the GIMP, GQView, gnome-terminal, Firefox, and FrostWire. I think the common trait is that all of them supply an icon pixmap. It doesn't matter if a window is moved over the icon or if the window is already over where the icon appears (icons are automatically lowered). It seems that the icon has to be completely covered. It happens even if you move to a different page.

Symptoms:
Xorg and fvwm use a lot of CPU. Sometimes X uses more, sometimes fvwm. xcompmgr sometimes starts leaking memory at around 1 MB/sec.

Fixes:
Kill xcompmgr, the iconified app, or uncover the icon.

I've tried using twm to reproduce the error, no go.

EDIT:
Tried again, fiddling with icon styles. If I do "Style * NoIconTitle", it works great.

[limit223]

I don't know if someone noticed KDE fake transparency does not require composite.
I address especially for people with ATI cards which have known issue in enabling it and keeping installed ati driver full function at the same time.
Make just Qt applications menus transparent is now the only eye-candy feature that I use on my desktop and it is not a giant eater of resource comparing composite.

If you wanna have it just do as simple as it is:
Kcontrol - Appearance & Themes - Style - Effects tab - Menu effect: select-Make Translucent
if want shadows: check - Menu drop shadow, choose a type and a percent of opacity.

Some shots are shown below:

[poofyhairguy]

Hi, I have the latest Nvidia drivers (8178 ), and everything is working perfectly -BUT- the "logout bug" is still there; when I log out it crashes. Is there any way to correct this problem? Thanks for the help!

Well...I think Ubuntu will have a new log out screen in Dapper, but for me the driver fixed the problem.

Best thing to remember is to his "esc" if you logout without remembering to

killall xcompmgr

Its not frozen, I promise.

[poofyhairguy]

*banging my head against the wall*
well 9 minutes later i solved the problem myself...sorry for bothering your thread poofy, but sometimes solving a problem is so simple, that i just don't see it...fluxbox has a menu for transparency, where everything can be set...which i just did ;)

a nice weekend to every1 who managed to get transparency working, and good luck to everybody else ;)

Using Kwin with Xcompmgr is a bad idea for the same reason- it has its own compositor.

[firehead]

Using Kwin with Xcompmgr is a bad idea for the same reason- it has its own compositor.


well i can just set transparency options for different things like (un-)focused window alpha, or menu alpha in the fluxbox configuration menu, but transparency wouldn't work without xcompmgr...so it's mandatory to use xcompmgr to get transparency in fluxbox (imho).
now it's working flawless

[poofyhairguy]

well i can just set transparency options for different things like (un-)focused window alpha, or menu alpha in the fluxbox configuration menu, but transparency wouldn't work without xcompmgr...so it's mandatory to use xcompmgr to get transparency in fluxbox (imho).
now it's working flawless


Sorry my mistake. Its XFCE with the built in compositor.

[piedamaro]

I'm not jelous. But think about me when you kill metacity. ;)

[ember]

Finally I tried this guide and I admit: Drop shadows and fading effects are just damn sexy, yet they keep crashing my OpenOffice (unofficial 2.0.1) and everytime I log out of gnome with more then just xcompmgr -a, my system crashes.
Anybody else with this problem?

[commodore]

I don't like that it changes the transparency of the whole titlebar or window. It would be great if it would change the background of those only. Not the text and buttons.

[poofyhairguy]

I don't like that it changes the transparency of the whole titlebar or window. It would be great if it would change the background of those only. Not the text and buttons.

Send a bug report to KDE. If you get a response post it here. We would love to know.

[poofyhairguy]

Finally I tried this guide and I admit: Drop shadows and fading effects are just damn sexy, yet they keep crashing my OpenOffice (unofficial 2.0.1) and everytime I log out of gnome with more then just xcompmgr -a, my system crashes.
Anybody else with this problem?

it does not crash when you log out of Gnome, the log out screen is just too small to see.

hit "esc" to unfreeze the computer.

[poofyhairguy]

I'm not jelous. But think about me when you kill metacity. ;)

I will....one day Metacity might rise again!

[paul cooke]

oohh this is just so neat... Thanks guys... that £60 I shelled out yesterday for a "new" nvidia card is well worth it, the previous one could only use legacy drivers...

Now things are just so much more snappier... but I did notice that if you left ordinary menu drop shadows enabled in the KDE settings things were slightly weird

[ember]

it does not crash when you log out of Gnome, the log out screen is just too small to see.

hit "esc" to unfreeze the computer.

Ah - thanks. Actually you are right, but it still leaves the question: How do I log out with xcompmgr enabled. Is there any way other than changing WMs?

Best regards,
ember

[veritas366]

Oh the IRONY. I clicked on the mpg at the beginning...and got a black screen inside my browser which has video controls but won't actually play. This is the current way my Firefox "plays" embedded mpegs. Worked before the breezy update. I know this is way off topic but since the number one issue I have with Ubuntu is multimedia (and this isn't even using a nonfree codec or anything) I thought I'd share the irony.

I know...there are ways to fix it. I spent so much time last time...trying mozplugger. Trying mplayer...deleting mplayer and trying totem. Right now...I simply right click and save all videos. Real media player works for those files...and that's nonfree.

Sigh.

Sorry for the OT comment. Couldn't stop myself.

[poofyhairguy]

Ah - thanks. Actually you are right, but it still leaves the question: How do I log out with xcompmgr enabled. Is there any way other than changing WMs?

Best regards,
ember

Getting the newest drivers fixed it for me. I seem to be a rarity. The only other solution for Xcompmgr is to make it easy to turn on and off (from the trick on the first page) and turn it off.

[piedamaro]

Getting the newest drivers fixed it for me. I seem to be a rarity. The only other solution for Xcompmgr is to make it easy to turn on and off (from the trick on the first page) and turn it off.
If you disable the logout prompt with gconf-editor (apps/gnome-session/options) it works, but it just ends the session and starts gdm.

[Jucato]

I've tried out this guide and updated my NVIDIA driver as well, but ran into some problems. Just like to ask 2 questions:

1. Do I need to install xcompmgr, if I'm using Kubuntu?
2. When using shadows/transparencies, I monitored my Xorg's VmSize performance. It starts out around 100,000, but shoots up to 800,000. Even while I only have 2 windows open! Is this a normal behavior when using composites? I mean I can understand if xorg w/ composites would use around 200,000+ VmSize, but for it to gradually grow to the limit of my RAM? It's like xorg is trying to eat up any and all remaining free space.

Here are my specs, btw:
AMD Sempron 2200 (1.5 GHz)
256 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 4000 128 MB

If I turn composite off, My xorg stays around at 60,000+ VmSize.

[fannymites]

If you use smeg/alacarte it's pretty easy to make a shutdown/reboot menu which you can also add to the panel in place of the logout applet (if you use it).

[ember]

Good idea. I will try it tomorrow. Yet now it's time to sleep - for my computer as well as for me ;)

[SilvioTO]

I have nvidia GeForce4 MX 440 and when activate composite work well. The problem come when I open twice windows, close and open another, for example, it place in foreground and hide all gnome panels.
If I start composite at boot, the bottom panel of gnome don't appear.
Is a know problem? thanks for your help.

Silvio.

[scrooch]

I haven't read all this in here;

Running Dapper: I think the new kernel is compiled with gcc 4.0 so perhaps CC should be adjusted too. (But on the other hand, somehow method2 is failling for me although nvidia-installer doesn't give errors, modprobing doesnt give errors but starting X states module nvidia can't be loaded/found)

Anyways...

How to get the menus Applications, PLaces and System transparant? Just transset and clicking the panel doesnt make the menus themselves transparant unfortunately!:confused:

[fannymites]

Right-click on panel and select properties (or preferences, can't remember) and change the background to solid colour then adjust the transparency that way.

[RAOF]

I haven't read all this in here;

Running Dapper: I think the new kernel is compiled with gcc 4.0 so perhaps CC should be adjusted too. (But on the other hand, somehow method2 is failling for me although nvidia-installer doesn't give errors, modprobing doesnt give errors but starting X states module nvidia can't be loaded/found)

Anyways...

How to get the menus Applications, PLaces and System transparant? Just transset and clicking the panel doesnt make the menus themselves transparant unfortunately!:confused:
Dapper has (I think) the latest nVidia drivers in the repositories. It's 81.78. Just install the nvidia-glx package. The kernel is being replaced too often in Dapper to manually install the nvidia drivers - you'd need to install them again every couple of days ;)

[Jucato]

does xorg have a leak when using composites in KDE (kompmgr)? I'm using the latest nvidia driver (8178). Does anyone have any idea?

[poofyhairguy]

does xorg have a leak when using composites in KDE (kompmgr)? I'm using the latest nvidia driver (8178). Does anyone have any idea?

Yeah....there seems to be no compositor that does not leak when shadows are turned on. That is the one thing we don't get yet.

Without shadows I never get leakage.

[Jucato]

oh, so is it possible to use transparency without the shadows and not have leaks? Thanks for your answer poofyhairguy, at least now I can rest my mind that I haven't done something wrong (yet). :D

[scrooch]

Right-click on panel and select properties (or preferences, can't remember) and change the background to solid colour then adjust the transparency that way.


Hehe yeah, but what I exaclty mean is, if you click on Applications. How to get the menu which you will get then (accessories, gaphics, internet etc) transparant?

[poofyhairguy]

oh, so is it possible to use transparency without the shadows and not have leaks? Thanks for your answer poofyhairguy, at least now I can rest my mind that I haven't done something wrong (yet). :D

Yeah without shadows it seems to be fine. And honestly the Kwin compositor does not leak THAT bad....I use it.

[poofyhairguy]

How to get the menu which you will get then (accessories, gaphics, internet etc) transparant?

You can't. I tried for hours. There is no way that I have found. If you really want such things try using XFCE's or KDE's panels in Gnome (Kicker works pretty good in Gnome).

The menus won't get transparent until Gnome has a native/full featured compositor....and they are REALLY dragging their feet on that. So it might be a while. I am starting to believe that if compositing did not have usability benefits (aka allows for blinder people to have a neat zoom in feature) Gnome would have waited till the last possible second to start making a compositor (and they almost have). I have never seen a group in Linuxland that cares out eye candy less outside of the "CLI for everything, Linux is for servers!" crowd.

With that said, maybe KDE's compositor will make the Gnome menus translucent soon. As you can tell from me attached screenshot, using my Knome Guide you can make the Gnome Panels become translucent easily. Also notice how well the Kwin theme I use (aka the title bar theme) matches the Clearlooks Cairo scroll bars very well.

Its better to give up on Metacity and native Gnome compositing for at least a few months.

[veritas366]

sorry if this has been answered. I like the way things look...but too much weirdness. I haven't read all of this thread...please point if I need to see something already posted.

First, the window behavior isn't working quite right...often, when a window is opened in front of another window, only the top left corner shows until I actually move the window. clicking on it wont' work. This happens a vast majority of the time. I thought it was the shadows..but turning them off didn't help.

It's too annoying to keep...but I love how things look. Suggestions?

Second, I've run into this with other themes I've downloaded that go beyond simply changing window borders etc. At the moment, it seems kcontrol is what set my Firefox colors. The main window decorations are fine and in keeping with the them I chose with kcontrol. However, somehow I changed the color of certain areas (don't know what they are called) to a lavender color I'd like to change. For example, right now, my sidepanels have this background color, as does the place where i enter the title above this post. However, the background of the box I currently type in is the normal cream color.

I tried changing colors within the firefox preferences, but choosing "use system colors" or use my colors seems not to change things at all. Something is overriding it. Changing colorschemes manually in kcontrol (very cool) also doesn't affect anything but the window itself.

I like the dark blue theme in kcontrol but it doesn't carry over. I don't mind if firefox doesn't match....but I'd like to dump the lavender background of the sidepanels and certain text boxes.

So...weird partial windows popping up and unwanted lavender tones. Thanks for the guide overall...and if anyone can help with these odd bits...I'd be grateful.

[veritas366]

Investigating further...I see that it is the transparency effect that's doing it. I turned off everything else...but only after I unchecked transparency did the partial windows appearances stop. You've seen the kind of thing before...even just passing the cursor over the "invisible" parts will make some of it appear.

I did download the most recent nvidia drivers...and enabled compositing, etc...I think I followed all the directions correctly. And all the compositing effects WORK...it's just that the windows don't materialize fully when I open a new program. I'd love to make this work...so any help would be nice.

[funkyou]

Hello there, I have a question:

I use composite under KDE with the kompmgr since a few days, and it
works very good...
But there is one problem i cannot fix, and this applies to Konqueror and
amaroK only...

When i start one of these programs and move them around, they get only
non-transparent when i move them... When i am not moving them, they
switch to transparent EVEN when they are on focus and activated, and
even when they are the only window on the Desktop too...

(I have kompmgr configured, that only the non-focused windows will be
transparent...)

I think this is very annoying...

Have played with the setting, but for me there is no way to fix this...
I have a nVidia GeForce FX5200 with the freshest NVidia-drivers...

Has anyone here experienced the same problem, and has fixed this in
any way? I would be glad if there is a way to get around this annoying behavior...

I have attached some screenshots with my settings... oh, and just as i made
the screenies i noticed that this behavior also applies to ksnapshot... :???:

greeting and btw: this is a great thread :)


-EDIT- I have attached a screenie of the behavior, its the last one below...
As you can see, Konqueror stays transparent even when activated and in
the foreground... But when i move the window, he gets non-transparent...

[poofyhairguy]

Hello there, I have a question:

I use composite under KDE with the kompmgr since a few days, and it
works very good...
But there is one problem i cannot fix, and this applies to Konqueror and
amaroK only...

When i start one of these programs and move them around, they get only
non-transparent when i move them... When i am not moving them, they
switch to transparent EVEN when they are on focus and activated, and
even when they are the only window on the Desktop too...

(I have kompmgr configured, that only the non-focused windows will be
transparent...)

I think this is very annoying...

Have played with the setting, but for me there is no way to fix this...
I have a nVidia GeForce FX5200 with the freshest NVidia-drivers...

Has anyone here experienced the same problem, and has fixed this in
any way? I would be glad if there is a way to get around this annoying behavior...

I have attached some screenshots with my settings... oh, and just as i made
the screenies i noticed that this behavior also applies to ksnapshot... :???:

greeting and btw: this is a great thread :)


-EDIT- I have attached a screenie of the behavior, its the last one below...
As you can see, Konqueror stays transparent even when activated and in
the foreground... But when i move the window, he gets non-transparent...


I have the same problem with Firefox every now and then. Its a definate bug and I'm trying to figure out how to report it.

[onesojourner]

this is awesome. makes me want to build a faster system so it runs smoother but its still awesome. this is the stuff dreams are made of..(at least in the realm of a desktop)

P4 1.8
512 RAM
asus NVIDIA 5200 (64 MB) with latest drivers.

[Jeff250]

Great guide. I was wondering: How can I disable the default Metacity window maximize/minimize effects? I know that I can using gconf-editor and toggling /apps/metacity/general/reduced_resources, but this also enables wireframe windows when you're moving them, which is pretty ugly looking. The default metacity behavior when maximizing/minimizing windows is interfering with my effects. :-?

I've since discovered a way to disable the cheezy Metacity minimize effects without causing wireframe windows upon move:
First enable:
/apps/metacity/general/reduced_resources
Then enable:
/desktop/gnome/interface/accessibility
I haven't exactly noticed any other effects yet of enabling the accessibility, but it does disable the wireframe windows when you move them.
EDIT: See this post (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=702089#post702089) for a potential problem!

Instead of xcompmgr, I'm also now using Metacity with kompmgr, KDE's compositor. With Cairo effects and a Clearlooks theme on top of this all, Metacity is definitely looking great!

[poofyhairguy]

Instead of xcompmgr, I'm also now using Metacity with kompmgr, KDE's compositor. With Cairo effects and a Clearlooks theme on top of this all, Metacity is definitely looking great!

Good call. I just tried it an it kinda works well. I now officially suggest using this to get ones drop shadow fix.

How to do it? First of all go to my Knome guide and install Kwin like I tell you to there. But don't do the parts that replace Metacity. Instead start kcontrol with the command "kcontrol" and set up the settings just like you want (be sure to turn on "translucency/shadows" with the checkbox. When you have the drop shadow and fading as you want them, use this trick in metacity with this command:

kompmgr

I do not recommend this for anyone that does not REALLY need Metacity as it offers almost no features that xcompmgr does not also offer. You don't get the cool translucent Gnome Panels this way (which really start to grow on you after a while), you don't get the window border translucency, you don't get the improvements of overall use (aka you still have to kill the gnome panel).

But if all you want out of compositing is drop shadows, then use kcompmgr over Xcompmgr. I might ever gut that part out of my guide....

[Jeff250]

Now that I've got Metacity's cheezy minimize effects disabled, the compositor fading on minimize works flawlessly as well. Menus, tool-tips, and other various pop-ups like Amarok's OSD also fade nicely. Closing a window doesn't fade though, probably because without the foresight of a window manager with built-in compositor (such as kwin) to keep the window open for the fading effect, it just closes immediately and this prevents the fade from being able to occur, but I don't really mind this.

Using kwin itself undoubtedly had better graphics effects options over Metacity. But it was just really messy, having to use two different "control panels" and trying to guess which one had "sovereignty" (if not both of them, which was even messier) over a certain setting. I also was never able to solve a bug where KDE apps like Amarok and Kopete would not put their icons in gnome's notification area on the panel. They were probably trying to use KDE's panel (which I believe is called "kicker") which wasn't available, even though I was using kwin.

So I'm satisfied with my current Metacity solution, which compromises graphics and ease of use in a way that is suitable for my tastes.

I'm also running Dapper, so I don't know to what extent that affects my experience.

[Paulus]

I'm not sure if this is just specific to me... I've noticed within this thread and outside of it that alot of people are complaining about e17 and xcompmgr/kompmgr. Just letting you all know that the latest cvs of e17 and xcompgr/kompmgr is 100% stable for me... using it full time and it's bliss!

heres a screenshot with some gnome love:
http://ubuntuforums.org/gallery/files/1/9/2/8/1/snapshot6.jpg

[Jeff250]

I've since discovered a way to disable the cheezy Metacity minimize effects without causing wireframe windows upon move:
First enable:
/apps/metacity/general/reduced_resources
Then enable:
/desktop/gnome/interface/accessibility
I haven't exactly noticed any other effects yet of enabling the accessibility, but it does disable the wireframe windows when you move them.

Gr, I've noticed one potential bug: Hitting "Apply" in the "Apply the following changes" dialogue in Synaptic seems to cause Synaptic to crash. This is with the latest version of Dapper. Can anyone else confirm or deny this bug who might be using Dapper or Breezy? It seems that by disabling /desktop/gnome/interface/accessibility (for me at least), logging out, and then back in resolves the issue.

[Rizado]

I just bought a nvidia 6600gt going from a R9500PRO, This is really cool and works great. Although I'm using KDE, No crashes so far. (Have only been running it for a couple of hours)

I read through the bugs at the end of the post, I did experience some artifacts when running kaffeine (I'm running it with xine because I want DVB support) however when I changed to xshm video driver in xine it disappeared. Transparacy affects the movie too. The CPU usage went up a little but not much, From 13% to about 20% (This is while decoding a TS stream) Maybe this is just when using KDE but it could be worth a shot.

No openglscreensaver crash bug in KDE either, and Firefox works great. I don't now about games because I don't have any installed yet.

[linkunderscore]

I apologize if this has already been mentioned but I don't really have the patience to read through this entire thread to check and see if this has already been posted.

But I believe I found a bug involving conky.

If conky is running on the desktop the shadows that shoudl be on the desktop wallpaper go away when conky refreshes. The shadows remain on other windows , but if the shadow falls on the desktop it goes away when conky refreshes. If I close conky this goes away. I haven't found a work around, and I don't plan on trying to ;). I like shadows more than I like conky.

[joehill]

Thanks for the tip, Jeff 250. I've got the Intel 955GM chipset (I believe virtually the same thing you have). But when I try to install the latest cvs from freedesktop.org (the common DRI package and the i915 drivers package) I get errors:


The DRI drivers can not be installed without the latest kernel modules.
Installation will be aborted. See the dri.log file for information on
what went wrong.


My first impression is to think, do these bleeding edge cvs builds only run on a bleeding edge kernel?

Does anyone have any more details on installing these, or general tips on getting it to work with Intel integrated chipsets? The effects are really cool but they are slow enough that they're counterproductive for me. I do a lot of window switching and waiting a second or two for the alt-tab dialog to come up or for my web pageto scroll is really annoying.

No crashes yet--my screen just gets a bit lazy.

[bluebyt]

Great job! Just would like to add if anyone experiences the "overlapping of the gnome-panel by applications".. just type "killall gnome-panel" in a terminal :KS


Thanks poofyhairguy :D

Does anyone have this bug "overlapping of the gnome-panel by applications"
When I do the "killall gnome-panel" I lost the bottom panel, it is very annoying?
(I have the latest nvidia drivers)

When I used this command at startup "xcompmgr -fFcC" sometime the top and the bottom panel are not visible?

Is it because I am on breezy, does it work better on dapper?

I am little disappointed on the stability of this!

[jannol]

Did you install that xcompmgr file linked in the first message. I think there might be issues with others, also, there can be a few issues due to different kernels, graphiccards etc, I had similar issues on my other computer with its geforce mx card.

[Parkotron]

Wow, this thread has really died off since XGL and Compiz were released.

Anyway, for those of you using KDE's kompmgr I thought I'd share that I found a really easy way to enable/disable compositing. KWin has dcop functions to turn kompmgr on and off. So I wrote a ridiculously simple bash script to toggle kompmgr on and off:

#! /bin/bash

if [[ "`dcop kwin KWinInterface kompmgrIsRunning`" == "false" ]]; then
dcop kwin KWinInterface startKompmgr
else
dcop kwin KWinInterface stopKompmgr
fi

exit 0
I then used KHotkeys to assign this script to a global shortcut (win+`). Now I can turn compositing on and off really quickly, which can be really useful if it starts acting up.

Hope this helps someone.

[nismoskys]

when i try to run xcompmgr (or even the gui version) my comp crashes beyond control, no ctrl alt backspace or anything fixes it.. (however the mouse still moves, but doesnt click on anything) only solution is to restart from the tower..

[poofyhairguy]

Wow, this thread has really died off since XGL and Compiz were released.

Anyway, for those of you using KDE's kompmgr I thought I'd share that I found a really easy way to enable/disable compositing. KWin has dcop functions to turn kompmgr on and off. So I wrote a ridiculously simple bash script to toggle kompmgr on and off:

#! /bin/bash

if [[ "`dcop kwin KWinInterface kompmgrIsRunning`" == "false" ]]; then
dcop kwin KWinInterface startKompmgr
else
dcop kwin KWinInterface stopKompmgr
fi

exit 0
I then used KHotkeys to assign this script to a global shortcut (win+`). Now I can turn compositing on and off really quickly, which can be really useful if it starts acting up.

Hope this helps someone.

Nice!

[magomago]

Ty VERRRY much. I'm not one for all too nice of effects...but using this REALLY speeded things up. My main linux complaint was the fact that the GUI was too unresponsive, and this REALLY put things in order!

[vbmaster]

Well, I'm having a bad experience with this tut.

I did everthing that was for me on this tut, and all run well. At the end, I tried some xcompmgr commands, and some crashed my desktop, while others resulted in beutiful things.

I don't know if this one was for me (i've a gForce4 mx 440) "xcompmgr -cC -t-3 -l-5 -r5", but after I run it my gnome pannel froze, and after the usual restart from the tower, my gdm just stop showing to me, after the loading screen of the ubuntu.

I received a black screen and after a some minutes I've an console version of the gdm that I don't want...

I want my gdm back... :P... :'(

P.S.: startx is not solution for me.... it works..but what I really want is my gdm.... :|

[mcwtlg]

It is still hanging during shutdown...nice effects, but a tad slow. The shutdown bug sucks as well.

I am using the latest 32 bit driver from the Nvidia site, installed with the how to from tseliot.

Geforce 5600 FX w/256 megs video RAM, P4 3 ghz, 512 system RAM.

PoofyHariGuy, I had a question. Your how to differs somewhat from the "newbie FAQ/Readme" included with the gCompMgr deb file. Any comments?

(I am not criticizing at all! Just curious. Yours is MUCH clearer, but they have info listed that conflicts with yours. I am pretty new to Linux generally and just got my dual boot working and am ery happy with Ubuntu Linux so far)

Here is the readme included:

################## IMPORTANT BUG NOTES ########################
Due to some kind of bug with Gnome and xcompmgr, if you have xcompmgr enabled
and you click on Actions->Log Out, your window manager will freeze.
You can safely shutdown by opening a terminal, and entering
shutdown 0 -h

################### xcompmgr INSTALLATION #####################

If you haven't already, fetch xcompmgr from freedesktop.org

cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.freedesktop.org:/cvs/xapps login
[No password needed, just press return]
cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.freedesktop.org:/cvs/xapps co xcompmgr

cd xcompmgr
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/X11R6/lib/pkgconfig/
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
su
[password]
make install

################### XORG CONFIGURATION #######################

The X configuration file is at /etc/X11/xorg.conf

You must be running either the ATI drivers from ati.com or the nvidia drivers from nvidia.com
The vesa video driver, with no hardware 3d acceleration will not cut it for running xorg compositing.
So if you haven't installed your cards commercial linux drivers, please do so before starting.

################################################## ############
# NVIDIA VIDEO CARD GUIDE

Driver WILL be "nvidia", if you have a driver called "nv", that won't cut the mustard,
you must have the "nvidia" driver from nvidia.com to make this work in hardware mode.
"nv" only has 2d acceleration so it is not suitable.

su to root, then open /etc/X11/xorg.conf

##### make sure your module section looks like this

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "fbdevhw"

# CHECK FOR THIS ONE
Load "glx"
Load "record"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"

# CHECK FOR BOTH OF THESE
Load "dri"
Load "GLcore"
EndSection

##### make sure your Device section looks like this

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "Videocard vendor"
BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce FX (generic)"

# CHECK FOR BOTH OF THESE
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
EndSection

##### add these at the end of the file

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
Option "RENDER" "true"
Option "DAMAGE" "true"
EndSection

################################################## ############
# ATI VIDEO CARD GUIDE

Driver may be "ati" or "fglrx"

su to root, then open /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Find

Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon Mobility 9000 M9 (R250 Lf)"
Driver "ati"
BusID "PCI:0:16:0"
Option "UseFBDev" "true"
EndSection


To

Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon Mobility 9000 M9 (R250 Lf)"
Driver "ati"
BusID "PCI:0:16:0"
Option "UseFBDev" "true"

Option "backingstore" "true"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
EndSection


and add

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
Option "RENDER" "true"
Option "DAMAGE" "true"
EndSection

[poofyhairguy]

Well, I'm having a bad experience with this tut.

I did everthing that was for me on this tut, and all run well. At the end, I tried some xcompmgr commands, and some crashed my desktop, while others resulted in beutiful things.

I don't know if this one was for me (i've a gForce4 mx 440) "xcompmgr -cC -t-3 -l-5 -r5", but after I run it my gnome pannel froze, and after the usual restart from the tower, my gdm just stop showing to me, after the loading screen of the ubuntu.

I received a black screen and after a some minutes I've an console version of the gdm that I don't want...

I want my gdm back... :P... :'(

P.S.: startx is not solution for me.... it works..but what I really want is my gdm.... :|

Resinstall GDM.

[poofyhairguy]

It is still hanging during shutdown...nice effects, but a tad slow. The shutdown bug sucks as well.

I am using the latest 32 bit driver from the Nvidia site, installed with the how to from tseliot.

Geforce 5600 FX w/256 megs video RAM, P4 3 ghz, 512 system RAM.

PoofyHariGuy, I had a question. Your how to differs somewhat from the "newbie FAQ/Readme" included with the gCompMgr deb file. Any comments?

(I am not criticizing at all! Just curious. Yours is MUCH clearer, but they have info listed that conflicts with yours. I am pretty new to Linux generally and just got my dual boot working and am ery happy with Ubuntu Linux so far)


This is guide far more complete and up to date than the gcompmgr file.

Though honestly at this point I recommend that people really don't use any sort of xcompmgr anymore.

Its better to use my Knome Guide:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=771053#post771053

[jnk]

I realy love this howto, great work.!!!!!
I got a AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (Barton Kernel) and a GeForce3 Ti400 gfxcard.
Using Ubuntu Brezzy, well well, thats a little info, now for the issue. ;)

If I use ONLY the fading effect, everything works like a charm, fast and stable.
But I want the shadow effect, the fading is just a pain in the *** ... =)
I have Firefox 1.5.0.1 running ( to see the guide) and the gnome-terminal to enter the shadow command.
I get shadows BUT if I try to minimize or resize (maybe close) the terminal everything freezes.
I cant event ctrl alt backspace, nothing happens... just hardreboot.
Is it my card thats the problemo or.? Have the latest repo nvidia drivers.
will updating drivers help.? updating xorg.? using opera instead of firefox.?
please help, I realy realy want the shodow thingy to work....!

[poofyhairguy]

I realy love this howto, great work.!!!!!
I got a AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (Barton Kernel) and a GeForce3 Ti400 gfxcard.
Using Ubuntu Brezzy, well well, thats a little info, now for the issue. ;)

If I use ONLY the fading effect, everything works like a charm, fast and stable.
But I want the shadow effect, the fading is just a pain in the *** ... =)
I have Firefox 1.5.0.1 running ( to see the guide) and the gnome-terminal to enter the shadow command.
I get shadows BUT if I try to minimize or resize (maybe close) the terminal everything freezes.
I cant event ctrl alt backspace, nothing happens... just hardreboot.
Is it my card thats the problemo or.? Have the latest repo nvidia drivers.
will updating drivers help.? updating xorg.? using opera instead of firefox.?
please help, I realy realy want the shodow thingy to work....!

The best bet is to use the Nvidia Guide to update your drivers to the newest version- only they are stable enough for use.

[jnk]

well, I downloaded the "NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-8178-pkg1.run" from nvidia.com and tried to install it.
I have the K7 kernel and all extras to it, headers and so.
But when I trie to run the NVIDIA installer it just tells me that it cant find nvidia.ko or something like that and the installer ends. =(

[mcwtlg]

Wrong Thread ... reposting :( in the Nvidia thread.

[kwaanens]

Who can use a Composite Manager? I hate to say it, but only people with Nvidia cards, an ATI 9250 card (or lower) and Dapper, or a fast enough computer.

What is ATI 9250 *and lower*?
I have an ATI x300 or whatever it's called on my Dell Inspiron 9300. Is that supported?
FWIW: I have 3d acceleration going fine.

- Ketil

[RAOF]

What is ATI 9250 *and lower*?
I have an ATI x300 or whatever it's called on my Dell Inspiron 9300. Is that supported?
FWIW: I have 3d acceleration going fine.

- Ketil
Just what it says: an ATI 9250 or older card. Your card's newer, so is not supported (well) by the open-source drivers, and the binary ATI driver's composite support stinks.

[poofyhairguy]

well, I downloaded the "NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-8178-pkg1.run" from nvidia.com and tried to install it.
I have the K7 kernel and all extras to it, headers and so.
But when I trie to run the NVIDIA installer it just tells me that it cant find nvidia.ko or something like that and the installer ends. =(

You have to follow (and write down some of) ALL of the red Method 2 here:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=75074

Its actually pretty darn hard to install the latest Nvidia drivers, but you have to do it if you want this stuff to be semi-stable.

If you can't get it to work (and I don't blame you- its some command line time) I say think about upgrading to Dapper. No one who really cares about stability messes with this sort of stuff (even with the newest driver there are lock ups sometimes) so upgrading to Dapper will give you the new drivers. Heck, you can mess with XGL then (which is far beyond anything in this guide).

Or just install the new Nvidia drivers. Either way. But otherwise this is just not stable enough to mess with long term.

[poofyhairguy]

What is ATI 9250 *and lower*?
I have an ATI x300 or whatever it's called on my Dell Inspiron 9300. Is that supported?
FWIW: I have 3d acceleration going fine.

- Ketil

No. Only older ATI cards work with this guide.

[kwaanens]

Just what it says: an ATI 9250 or older card.

That's why I asked. I have no idea how ATI numbers its graphic cards, or how old 9250 is.

So, any hope for good ATI-support (soon), or should I find out how much it will cost to put in an Nvidia instead? (Any ideas anyone?)

- Ketil

[Jucato]

Just some quick questions I've been (almost) dying to ask. In Dapper, what Xorg version will be included? And how about composite managers? Can we expect a bit more stability in these coming release?

I've been able to successfully (after the nth try) install the NVIDIA driver (GeForce4 MX4000) and the kcompmgr works well, except for the annoying memory leak when it comes to shadows (which I would prefer to use over translucency...)

OT: More power to you poofy! :D

[poofyhairguy]

That's why I asked. I have no idea how ATI numbers its graphic cards, or how old 9250 is.

So, any hope for good ATI-support (soon), or should I find out how much it will cost to put in an Nvidia instead? (Any ideas anyone?)

- Ketil

ATI seems to not want to change their ways.

My official advice to anyone that asks is to move to an Nvidia card.

[poofyhairguy]

Just some quick questions I've been (almost) dying to ask. In Dapper, what Xorg version will be included?

7.0


And how about composite managers? Can we expect a bit more stability in these coming release?

Pretty much the same state of Breezy if you don't count compiz. Count that and its a whole new world.

[Jucato]

Oh I see. I hoped that maybe the composite managers would have improved. I guess I have to wait for the next update to kompmgr. Or try out this compiz thing, which I have absolutely no idea about. :D

[poofyhairguy]

Oh I see. I hoped that maybe the composite managers would have improved. I guess I have to wait for the next update to kompmgr.

At this point most of the improvement will come from the composite extension getting better or drivers getting better. But neither has grown leaps and bounds since Breezy. KDE 3.5 has the most advanced "normal" compositor and you can get that now in Breezy. Big changes in this area will come from thing that are more than just a compositor, such as XGL + Compiz.


Or try out this compiz thing, which I have absolutely no idea about. :D

Its worth looking into on Dapper.

[Sutekh]

Thanks so much for the effort you have poured into this guide poofyhairguy.

Also big thanks to tseliot for his excellent NVIDIA HOWTO (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=75074).

I had no problems installing the 8178 Drivers, then was surprised at how easy it was to install xcompmgr.

Integrating with XFCE was a little harder, but the Gentoo Wiki (http://gentoo-wiki.com/TIP_Xorg_X11_and_Transparency#Composite_manager_is _already_running_with_Xfce4) had a tip for turning XFCE's own composite manager off.

Cheers also to frodon for the toggle script.

Unfortunately pictures just don't do it justice. I wanna get a video together but am scarce for time. I absolutely love the desktop wrapping and auto-focussing ability of XFCE. Combined with the composite manager it is mouth-watering.
6595
The first pic is the XFCE menu opening over Firefox.
6596
The second pic is me moving the mouse from one desktop to another, from Rhythmbox to Firefox. This picture just can't hope to show how COOL that looks, sorry, but I hope you get the idea.

Now to create some space for Dapper and try Xgl/Compiz!

[hitman012]

Regrettably, I can't seem to get everything to work properly here. Hardware acceleration of windows seems to be OK as well as the fading (which is nice), but using a command involving drop shadows results in a complete GUI lockup, needing a hard reset.

If it was maximising the CPU usage, I'd expect at least some responsiveness and the cursor does move smoothly but with no response from the windows at all. I understand that it's buggy, but surely this isn't simply a problem with the program?

I'm running it on a Duron 1.3GHz with 1GB of RAM and a GF4 MX440. My suspicion is the card, but I don't have an unused one to test it with (other rigs are PCI-E).

Thanks in advance :)

[John.Michael.Kane]

@poofyhairguy I got this guide of yours to work minus the transparency, on laptop with a sis based gpu running dapper... how stable it is time will tell. good work on the guide ...

[escape]

Might want to add a note that this breaks fglrx on ATI cards, and gives you the Mesa stuff instead. Know any way to get around this (besides using xgl instead)? I'm pretty sure the exact cause is putting the Extensions/Composite Enabled part in xorg.conf.

[pestypest]

Hey poofhairguy, i was wondering if i could see ur xorg.conf file to see if mine looks the same? i tried to installing and i killed X and i had to change evrything back to the way is was. I think i may have put a space or somthng in the wrong spot but im not sure so if maybe u could post it so i know what to look and how it should look that would be great. Also i was wondering if you could tell me if my specs meet the req's to run this?

Amd X2 4600+ smp kernal K8
Nvidia GO 7800 GTX 256mb
160 GB HD
2GB ram
Ubuntu Breezy

Im trying this on my laptop.

[RAOF]

Might want to add a note that this breaks fglrx on ATI cards, and gives you the Mesa stuff instead. Know any way to get around this (besides using xgl instead)? I'm pretty sure the exact cause is putting the Extensions/Composite Enabled part in xorg.conf.
The ATI drivers are crap. You can use exactly one of:
1) 3D acceleration
2) Composite

Your pick :(

Xgl gets around this problem by doing 2) with 1) :)

[Sutekh]

Also i was wondering if you could tell me if my specs meet the req's to run this?

Amd X2 4600+ smp kernal K8
Nvidia GO 7800 GTX 256mb
160 GB HD
2GB ram
Ubuntu Breezy

Im trying this on my laptop.
I'm really no expert, but with hardware like that you really must be able to get it working. You should keep track of exactly the commands you make, it may have been a erronous space that messed things up. It was a really easy thing to setup for me.

Again, sweet hardware.

[dartmusic]

First off, I'd like to give a big thanks to Poofy for a great HOWTO.

Second, I'd like to know the best way to turn all of this off! I've got it running and it's pretty damn breathtaking! But (and there's always a but), it's SO unstable that I can't use it for long before Xorg starts using huge amounts of CPU and the screen redraws become extremely unstable to the point that clicking on anything in the kicker results in a big, fat nothing and I have to either do a ctrl-alt-backspace to restart the X server or sometimes it locks up the entire machine and I have to do a hard reboot. This happens at least once a day.

For now I'm going to wait a few more weeks for the stable Dapper release and try compiz, but for now I need to disable all of this stuff so as not to constantly be disrupted by lockups and such. Do I simply remark out the two new lines that were added at the end of the xorg.conf file? Is there something else? I'm running this on an HP zd7000 series notebook with an Nvidia video card.

Thanks again.