How-To: Install Compiz-Fusion from GIT

[Espreon]

OK, so you wanna install the latest CF from GIT? Well this guide will tell you how!
Lets get a couple of things straight:

1: Whenever I ask you to run a command with "/home/yourhome" replace "yourhome" with the name of your home folder

2: The latest CF from GIT is just as stable as the one shipped from Gutsy (in my experiences at least, and I poke around A LOT with settings and whatnot)

3: IDK if this guide will work on Feisty

4: I am no Linux guru so use this guide at your own risk

What you will get from this guide:

-The latest version of CF
-Some really cool plugins, like Atlantis2, Snowglobe, Freewins, etc
-The latest version of CCSM, Emerald
-Lots of Emerald themes
-The CF Icon
-Some tips
-An adventure (maybe)

Enough small talk, lets begin...

1. Install one of the most important app for any CF user who wants bleeding edge features... GIT:

Enter this in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install git-core

2. Temporarliy switch to a different WM:

For GNOME users:

metacity --replace

For KDE users:

kwin --replace

3. Completely uninstall CF:

sudo apt-get remove compiz compiz-core compiz-dev compiz-bcop compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-fusion-plugins-extra compiz-fusion-plugins-main compiz-gnome compiz-kde emerald libcompizconfig-0 python-compiz --purge

If you wanna play it safe delete the .compiz folder in your home folder (it is hidden so you will need to enable the sight of hidden folders)

4. Make Compiz directory:

mkdir Compiz

5. Get the important stuff:

Download this and this to your newly created Compiz directory

Now extract the "makefusion.tar.gz" so that the file "makefusion" is at the root of the Compiz directory. Extract the "compiz-patches-HEAD.tar.gz" to root of the Compiz directory.

If you followed the directions correctly you should see a "makefusion" file and a "compiz-patches" directory in your Compiz directory.

6. Manipulate the makefusion script (If you use only GNOME with CF you can skip this step)

GNOME users:

gedit /home/yourhome/Compiz/makefusion

For KDE users:

kate /home/yourhome/Compiz/makefusion

Now that we opened the script search for this: COMPIZREMOVE="kde"

If you only use CF with KDE change "kde" to "gnome"
If you use CF with both remove the line
Also if you are a KDE user search for ubuntu and change it to kubuntu

7. Change the script permissions:

cd Compiz
chmod +x makefusion

8. Install the dependencies:

./makefusion packages

9. Download the source code from the CF GIT repos:

./makefusion clone

10.Apply Patch

cp ~/Compiz/compiz-patches/compiz-disable-libx11-xcb-support.patch ~/Compiz/compiz

Then enter this"

cd compiz
patch < compiz-disable-libx11-xcb-support.patch

When it asks for files to patch enter this first:

include/compiz-core.h

Hit enter and enter this:

src/display.c

in

After you finish patching those files enter this:

cd ..

11. Compile Time!

Enter this:

sudo ./makefusion install

This will take a while

After its finished please proceed

12. Making it so CF still autostarts...

This guide breaks Ubuntu's CF startup mechanism and you can no longer manually start CF by entering "compiz" in the terminal. So you will need to make it so the CF Icon is automatically started.

Enter this:

sudo cp /usr/bin/fusion-icon /usr/local/bin

For GNOME users:

Goto: System>Preferences>Sessions

Hit add, for the name put "CF Icon" (w/o quotes) and for the command put "fusion-icon" (w/o quotes). Hit OK.

For KDE users:

You are on your own, IDK how to make things autostart on KDE, the important thing is that the command to start the CF Icon is "fusion-icon" (w/o quotes)

For KDE 4 users:

Create a file in /usr/lib/kde4/share/autostart
called Fusion-Icon.desktop and fill the empty file with this:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Exec=fusion-icon

13. The most important step...

Configure and Enjoy.

To configure CF enter this:

ccsm

Or Look for "Advance Desktop Effects Settings" in your menu.
In GNOME it is found under: System>Preferences


Updating:

If you wanna update CF to its latest enter this in the terminal (assuming the workin directory is your home folder)

cd Compiz
sudo ./makefusion clone
sudo ./makefusion install

Remember this can break CF, and before wasting your time check this website, to see if anything was recently changed:

http://gitweb.beryl-project.org/

Uninstalling:

If you wanna uninstall the GIT Version of CF do the following (assuming the workin directory is your home folder):

cd Compiz
sudo ./makefusion uninstall

If you wanna play it safe delete the .compiz folder in your home folder (it is hidden so you will need to enable the sight of hidden folders)


Optional Stuff:

Finding additional plugins to add to your collection:

Goto this website:

http://gitweb.beryl-project.org/

Look for something that sounds nice and heres example commands to enter:

git-clone git://gitweb.beryl-project.org/fusion/plugins/3d
cd 3d
make
sudo make install

Re-enabling the authentic "Genie Effect":

This is what you need to do to re enable the authentic Genie Effect in CF:

sudo apt-get install ghex

Now enter this:

For GNOME users:

sudo gedit /usr/local/share/compiz/animation.xml

For KDE users:

sudo kate /usr/local/share/compiz/animation.xml

Search for (w/o quotes): "<short>Magic Lamp Max Waves</short>"

Now goto the line (w/o quotes) "<min>3</min>" and change 3 to 0. Save and quit.

Then enter this:

sudo ghex2 /usr/local/lib/compiz/libanimation.so

Goto Edit>Find

In the Second box (the smaller one) type in (w/o quotes) "magic_lamp_max_waves"

Change the 3 in this "<min>3</min" next to "magic_lamp_max_waves" to 0, save and quit.

Open CCSM and goto Animations>Effect Settings>Magic Lamp>Magic Lamp Max Waves and reduce the 3 to 0.

Enjoy..

Most of this tutorial was taken from this great site: http://compizfusionrevolution.wordpr...fusion-script/

Help Desk (If any1 has a better name please yell out):

If you are having errors with CCSM try this before complaining (thanks bfoos):

sudo ldconfig

If Compiz is significantly increasing boot/login time then look at these tips:

1. Disable plugins you don't need or ever use (Disabling lots of plugins you do not use can noticably decrease boot/login time)

If anybody has any more tips that will decrease login time that relates to Compiz please yell out...

[glennric]

Why do you say to copy the file /usr/bin/fusion-icon to /usr/local/bin? This should have nothing to do with whether or not compiz loads at startup. The only thing needed is to add fusion-icon to your session. This may conflict with compiz loading at startup, so you may need to do something about that.

Also, instead of editing animation.xml and libanimation.xml after installing you should edit the source files before compilation. Then you won't have to edit a hex file. I have attached a patch that will make these changes.
From the directory for plugins-main type

bzcat path/to/fix-min-magic-lamp-waves.patch.bz2 | patch -p1

You will still have to change the setting in ccsm.

Edit: I forgot to point out that to install ghex2 you should type

sudo apt-get install ghex

not sudo apt-get install ghex2

Edit2: Oh, I also forgot the most important thing. That is thanks for the post. I didn't use your script, but I essentially used the method in the script, and the patches were useful.

[Espreon]

On the contrary, in my experiences CF Icon, even though it is set to auto start with GNOME, will not start unless fusion-icon is located in /usr/local/bin... Thanks for your feedback.
But did my guide work for you? (Even though I am sure I know the answer).

Also the script is not mine, it was from that great website.

[glennric]

Originally Posted by Espreon On the contrary, in my experiences CF Icon, even though it is set to auto start with GNOME, will not start unless fusion-icon is located in /usr/local/bin... Thanks for your feedback. But did my guide work for you? (Even though I am sure I know the answer). Also the script is not mine, it was from that great website.

That is odd, and doesn't make sense. Both /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin should be in your path. So if you add fusion-icon to your session it should start if it is in either of those. It works for me without copying it by the way. The other thing is that with your prefix set to /usr/local, as is the default in your script, fusion-icon should be installed to /usr/local/bin by default. So you aren't really copying it there, it is already there.

As to whether your guide worked. Yes, I got everything installed and running. Although, I really only used your guide to get an idea of the order of installation and to locate the git repository to use. I actually made debian packages of it all, modifying the ubuntu gutsy deb scripts appropriately.

[shadow sk1ll]

ok i followed everything up to ccsm.
when i do that i get

skynet@skynet:~$ ccsm
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/bin/ccsm", line 37, in <module>
import compizconfig
ImportError: /usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/compizconfig.so: undefined symbol: ccsStringToEdges
skynet@skynet:~$

what ya think i should do?

[Espreon]

Hmmmm, try recompiling CCSM, otherwise I really do not know.

[bfoos]

I had the same exact issue as shadow sk1ll. I followed your guide to the letter and got no window decorator for my time. Had to remove the git build and install from synaptic to get everything working correctly.

[joshuachad]

you dont have to recomplie anything. Provided you installed to /usr/local all you need to do anytime you complile something is run sudo ldconfig.

Then you should be straight.

[kpel]

Huh, I just followed the instructions and have almost everything working. I've got the effects and the icon, but I've got the good 'ole no windows border thing. Configuration screens won't come up either. Edit: Alt+F2 also fails to pull up the window. I'm sure this is all the same bug, but I've yet to figure it out.


Nvidia 7950GX2, drivers from the repos, and I've already got the argb, -d 24, composite, and render accel flags set in xorg.conf. Gotta see if I can figure it out, I don't like the CF version in the ubuntu repos.

Edit2: I can now get the Emerald and CCSM windows, I installed the libemeraldengine package via synaptic along with it's dependency as I noticed an error output for the library. Now I've just got the window border problem....I imagine that alt+f2 not working anymore is a result of CF stealing key bindings...

Edit3: Apparently all of that Christmas food kept my brain from functioning properly. If you happen to have the problem I did, and can get into CCSM, make sure the Window Decoration plugin is enabled. As I look through it I'm noticing a lot of rather necessary stuff isn't on by default, like the move plugin. Double check what plug-ins are enabled. I actually feel rather stupid having not figured that out faster, but I'll leave this post here for anyone else that might run into the problem.


Big thanks to Espreon for the How-To.

[bfoos]

^ Yup, all plugins are disabled by default. I racked my brain and was just about to remove the git build when I figured I'd just start enabling plugins until my window borders were functioning properly. At first, only the first rendered window was decorated. Now all is peachy. Much nicer than the version in the repos. Many thanks to the author of this guide.

I know it may be a no brainer for some, but you should add..

Run:

sudo ldconfig

before running ccsm.

It's not so obvious to some of us newbies.