Unity panel always displayed on top of fullscreen windows

[Ubun2to]

I hope it's not me or my hardware, but the last week or so, Compiz has become extremely unstable. Within 3-10 hours of a reboot, almost inevitably I'll come up against:

1) a frozen desktop, or one that is completely corrupted;
2) a desktop that will refuse to return from the screensaver, requiring a hard reboot, which is always fun;
3) a "broken cube," as it were -- a desktop which refuses to spin to reveal any other desktops. In the past, when Compiz crashed in this fashion, it was considerate enough to arrange all open windows from other desktops on the remaining one, but the most recent version of Compiz do not do this.

I understand this isn't the best place to post this -- however 1) when I look at the lengthy list of Compiz bugs on Launchpad, I don't really see anything germane because 2) I don't really know where to look to find. In fact, [the few] times when the crash reporter pops up to ask me if I'd like to report the bug, it asks me something impenetrable or irrelevant.

So -- I guess one reason I'm posting here is I don't find another Compiz thread, and the discussion here has been intelligent and well-informed.

1) Where should I look to find the bug to report?
2) Is there any particular feature I should try disabling to stabilize things?
3) As I mentioned earlier, I had trouble with the the older version of Compiz, so am unwilling to use the back version. I really have grown quite fond of Unity, but while an occasional crash is acceptable, inevitable ones really aren't. Should I just go to Gnome 3?

According to isantop in this thread, using things such as the Compiz Cube will make Unity mess up due to it not being made to use it.

[firekage]

According to isantop in this thread, using things such as the Compiz Cube will make Unity mess up due to it not being made to use it.

I have no problems using compiz with cube and desktop effect - only the one from this topic.

[quequotion]

1) a frozen desktop, or one that is completely corrupted;
2) a desktop that will refuse to return from the screensaver, requiring a hard reboot, which is always fun;
3) a "broken cube," as it were -- a desktop which refuses to spin to reveal any other desktops. In the past, when Compiz crashed in this fashion, it was considerate enough to arrange all open windows from other desktops on the remaining one, but the most recent version of Compiz do not do this.

Take a look back, on page 9, at this post for some tips on getting out of a frozen or broken desktop.

1) Where should I look to find the bug to report?
2) Is there any particular feature I should try disabling to stabilize things?
3) As I mentioned earlier, I had trouble with the the older version of Compiz, so am unwilling to use the back version. I really have grown quite fond of Unity, but while an occasional crash is acceptable, inevitable ones really aren't. Should I just go to Gnome 3?

Are you using the latest compiz from Quantal?
I backed off a few versions after seeing the mess it's in right now. A whole new development phase has begun, porting compiz to OpenGL|ES for ARM devices. Some of the features are neat and it's super light on resources, but lots of plugins were lobotomized and some of the new features are creating indescribably buggy behavior.

1. I spend a lot of time on google. Think of seven different ways to say what you think is wrong and search them all; think of ways to make your searches more effective; you might find a report--if not make a new report. If you are using a bleeding-edge version however, it is likely that the issue has not been reported--not to say it is unknown. You might be able to talk to developers via IRC, on freednode at #compiz-dev or #ubuntu-unity, keeping in mind that they are busy coders and volunteers with mysterious schedules.

2. If you are using the new compiz, of particular importance are the new options in OpenGL: "Framebuffer Object", "Vertex Buffer Object" and " Always use Buffer Swapping". Dependingon your graphics card and drivers these can either really hurt or really help you (they are alll intended to improve performance, but are not yet stable or complete). I found "Vertex Buffer Object" is causing some strangeness, like a hall-of-mirrors effect and other times a shattered cube effect, but is also necessary for some other things.

3. Essentially, we are all using Gnome 3, or GTK3 with most of the Gnome Suite in Ubuntu. The only thing you are "missing out" on is the Gnome-Shell desktop. It isn't compatible with compiz, doesn't vertically sync, and is even more touch-panel oriented than Unity... The Mint Linux "Cinnamon" desktop looks promising if you want to go "back to basics" and I'm putting some thought into it myself.

I appreciate your enthusiasm. Particularly because I've also run into so many other problems in relation to this one, I'm happy to help. There is a subforum for the discussion of Desktop Environments you might want to look through.

After an interesting week with the new GL|ES compiz, I backed down to 0.9.8+bzr3319-0ubuntu1, which was the best release of compiz since unity came out. This version doesn't have some of the new performance enhancements, but all bugs affecting me except for this thread's topic are fixed, the "extra" plugins are rolled in, and it even comes with "stackswitch"--my favorite "[Alt]+[[Tab]" alternative.

According to isantop in this thread, using things such as the Compiz Cube will make Unity mess up due to it not being made to use it.

Making Unity a compiz plugin that is incompatible with the cube would be a fallacy of unimaginable magnitude.... which actually happened but the design was revised after a flood of negative press threatened to kill unity in its crib. Unity should be fully compatible with the cube at this point, and I can't seem to find any issues other than the subject of this thread.
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Back on topic:
Now that bug 734908 is fixed, bug 1025535 needs to get more attention. The development team is still keeping track, but the bug has low priority and no one is assigned to getting it fixed yet. If you have any input please log in to launchpad and contribute!

[Ubun2to]

Making Unity a compiz plugin that is incompatible with the cube would be a fallacy of unimaginable magnitude.... which actually happened but the design was revised after a flood of negative press threatened to kill unity in its crib. Unity should be fully compatible with the cube at this point, and I can't seem to find any issues other than the subject of this thread.

I personally stay away from any extra Compiz plugins because of these sorts of issues. The current workspace switcher is just fine for me, after I made some adjustments to the keyboard shortcuts for easier access.

[quequotion]

I personally stay away from any extra Compiz plugins because of these sorts of issues. The current workspace switcher is just fine for me, after I made some adjustments to the keyboard shortcuts for easier access.

This is a reasonable point of view. Things are a little different for me because I have been using compiz since long before the Canonical takeover and unity, so I see the cube as the quintessential component of the compiz desktop. I understand that it was a better choice than Gnome-Shell's mutter-based desktop at the time, but it doesn't make sense to me that Canonical chose compiz to develop a 2D desktop environment and it probably never will.

In fact, I see unity as the obtrusive, unstable plugin that is not really compatible with compiz.

[quequotion]

I thought I'd give an example to illustrate why this issue matters to me.

I've gotten used to a certain work flow using a fully transparent cube.

I'm attaching a screenshot, scaled down from 1680x1050 to 1024x640, which shows the basics:

On the front and back sides are reports for work; on the left is my work schedule in the bottom half and my salary form on the top half; on the right is a home video. For aesthetics, the background is a 360° equirectangular panorama. Most important here is that everything is visible, but nothing is obstructed.

To keep organized, I usually have only one or two windows on each desktop. In this example, the left side has two windows that are arranged using the compiz "grid" plugin, the front and back have single, unaligned windows, which I might maximize later, and the right has a full-screen video. Since the cube is completely transparent, I can always see all of these things at the same time, which makes it very easy to switch back and forth between tasks.In case I lose track, I don't have to preview all the desktops and then select the one I want or wander from desktop to desktop or even [alt]+[tab] to the window I want, I just take a look around and rotate to it. Since each side is displayed at a different angle and distance, nothing gets in the way of anything else visually. With the "brightness, opacity, and saturation" plugin, I can add transparency to windows case-by-case in order to watch the video while I work and roughly see the content of all windows on all desktops. Sometimes I'm just watching movies or TV, but I might also be transcribing the dialogue from a certain scene. When I'm really busy I usually forgo the TV and have a dozen windows, organized by task, across each side.

This works for me, keeps me alert and productive, and generally produces good results on time. I use the same work flow for all sorts of things ie:
Designing graphics while searching for stock photography or clipart and writing a plan for how to use them at work, reading logs and editing configuration files while reporting a bug on launchpad, playing a game while reading a walkthrough and watching a video of a tricky part, etc etc. I used the same work flow to write this post while editing the screenshot to blackout and blur sensitive information--all the while still watching the home video of a festival I participated in some years ago.

Whenever I need a break, I switch to the full-screen video, and I am mildly irritated that Unity is getting in the way of enjoying this--not to mention that it also appears over the screensaver and reveals the title of whatever window I was last using.

[Ubun2to]

I thought I'd give an example to illustrate why this issue matters to me.

I've gotten used to a certain work flow using a fully transparent cube.

I'm attaching a screenshot, scaled down from 1680x1050 to 1024x640, which shows the basics:

On the front and back sides are reports for work; on the left is my work schedule in the bottom half and my salary form on the top half; on the right is a home video. For aesthetics, the background is a 360° equirectangular panorama. Most important here is that everything is visible, but nothing is obstructed.

To keep organized, I usually have only one or two windows on each desktop. In this example, the left side has two windows that are arranged using the compiz "grid" plugin, the front and back have single, unaligned windows, which I might maximize later, and the right has a full-screen video. Since the cube is completely transparent, I can always see all of these things at the same time, which makes it very easy to switch back and forth between tasks.In case I lose track, I don't have to preview all the desktops and then select the one I want or wander from desktop to desktop or even [alt]+[tab] to the window I want, I just take a look around and rotate to it. Since each side is displayed at a different angle and distance, nothing gets in the way of anything else visually. With the "brightness, opacity, and saturation" plugin, I can add transparency to windows case-by-case in order to watch the video while I work and roughly see the content of all windows on all desktops. Sometimes I'm just watching movies or TV, but I might also be transcribing the dialogue from a certain scene. When I'm really busy I usually forgo the TV and have a dozen windows, organized by task, across each side.

This works for me, keeps me alert and productive, and generally produces good results on time. I use the same work flow for all sorts of things ie:
Designing graphics while searching for stock photography or clipart and writing a plan for how to use them at work, reading logs and editing configuration files while reporting a bug on launchpad, playing a game while reading a walkthrough and watching a video of a tricky part, etc etc. I used the same work flow to write this post while editing the screenshot to blackout and blur sensitive information--all the while still watching the home video of a festival I participated in some years ago.

Whenever I need a break, I switch to the full-screen video, and I am mildly irritated that Unity is getting in the way of enjoying this--not to mention that it also appears over the screensaver and reveals the title of whatever window I was last using.

I have no idea how you can juggle all of this. My brain is made for single tasking. When I multitask, I usually end up messing up on my typing.
This is what usually happens when I'm listening to some live streaming music (which is what I like to do-something new nearly every time) when I am typing a document:

After considering what you want in your new custom-built machine, you should throw my hands up in the air sometimes, and also consider getting the nVidia GTX 660 so you can don't have to worry about upgrading it any time in the near future.

It can lead to some very awkward situations when people read what I type by accident. My train of thought is also easily brute-forced by trivial matters such as billboards on the side of the highway.

I wonder how much longer this traffic will eat at McDonalds-wait wut?

[quequotion]

I have no idea how you can juggle all of this. My brain is made for single tasking. When I multitask, I usually end up messing up on my typing.
This is what usually happens when I'm listening to some live streaming music (which is what I like to do-something new nearly every time) when I am typing a document:

After considering what you want in your new custom-built machine, you should throw my hands up in the air sometimes, and also consider getting the nVidia GTX 660 so you can don't have to worry about upgrading it any time in the near future.

It can lead to some very awkward situations when people read what I type by accident. My train of thought is also easily brute-forced by trivial matters such as billboards on the side of the highway.

I wonder how much longer this traffic will eat at McDonalds-wait wut?

Haha I see how that could be troublesome.

[Sentello]

Ubuntu 12.10 with program Dreamstream e2