Who uses compiz?

[MONODA]

Hi after using compiz fusion for some time, I began having a lot of trouble with it. Videos and music not playing properly, random freezes and reboots, and some other annoying problems, i remembered that compiz fusion is still in version 0.52. doesnt this mean that it is still beta? if so then why is it turned on by default in Ubuntu or even installed by feault? IMO this is one of the biggest mistakes in Ubuntu since people get excited by seeing the videos of compiz on youtube and then try out ubuntu and it turns out to not be stable and mess uo a lot. This is a big mistake what do ytou guys think?
EDIT: oh btw i have turned off compiz and find Ubuntu mmuch more relaxing to use since I dont have to worry about crashes and i dont have the really cool effects to distract me :P

[Het Irv]

I use small parts of it, such as The Cube, Wobbly Windows, and Random Closeing effects. I have had some problems with Compiz "losing" the windows (shake of death), but for the most part I have had no major problems.

[harold4]

In my personal experience, after a little tweaking, I haven't run into any problems.

Liquid desktop goodness :-P

[MONODA]

I have tried to disable all the effects except scale since thats the only one that I use but I was unable to move any windows if I did that.
EDIT: tweaking as in what?

[/home]

I use small parts of it, such as The Cube, Wobbly Windows, and Random Closeing effects.
CUBE:guitar:

[harold4]

Nothing major. Basically opened ccsm, gutted all the settings and only added what I use. Then changed the individual settings for each plugin.

By default, some of the plugins don't play nice together.

[akiratheoni]

I have tried to disable all the effects except scale since thats the only one that I use but I was unable to move any windows if I did that.
EDIT: tweaking as in what?

Tweaking as in customizing and changing the options to what you really like, I believe.


Hi after using compiz fusion for some time, I began having a lot of trouble with it. Videos and music not playing properly, random freezes and reboots, and some other annoying problems, i remembered that compiz fusion is still in version 0.52. doesnt this mean that it is still beta? if so then why is it turned on by default in Ubuntu or even installed by feault? IMO this is one of the biggest mistakes in Ubuntu since people get excited by seeing the videos of compiz on youtube and then try out ubuntu and it turns out to not be stable and mess uo a lot. This is a big mistake what do ytou guys think?
EDIT: oh btw i have turned off compiz and find Ubuntu mmuch more relaxing to use since I dont have to worry about crashes and i dont have the really cool effects to distract me :P

Compiz-Fusion is pre-installed but not turned on by default.

I really like Compiz unfortunately I broke it and while finding tutorials to re-install it, I installed the bleeding edge version I think which is/was 0.6 or something higher. It's really weird because when I drag windows, I don't press and hold the left click -- I have to click once on the title bar, then move it, then click again. It's really annoying. Also despite the cube being 'activated' and checked off in the options, I can't use it and there are no keybindings for ANY feature.

Now, I'm not complaining. I shouldn't have installed the latest version and it is in beta after all. So it gave me inspiration to try Openbox. Openbox, while lightweight and made for older machines, is super fast on my computer which is fairly new. I love it more than Compiz, though I do miss my cube and wobbly windows.

[MONODA]

Compiz-Fusion is pre-installed but not turned on by default.
no it is turned on by default in gutsy gibbon, once you install your graphics card they are turned on.(I have installed ubuntu on a laptop that did not need to enable restricted drivers and compiz was turned on by default).

[~LoKe]

When I first got a hold of it, I used it religiously. Now, it's always disabled.

[MONODA]

Now, it's always disabled.
why did you disable it, same reasons as me? ( i also have it turned off since it slows my computer down about half a second for each thing I need to do.)

[~LoKe]

why did you disable it, same reasons as me?

I disabled it because I switched to a WM which Compiz won't function on. Also, it drastically reduces performance.

[smartboyathome]

I used to use it, but use E17 now. I would use it again if it were available for it.

[akiratheoni]

no it is turned on by default in gutsy gibbon, once you install your graphics card they are turned on.(I have installed ubuntu on a laptop that did not need to enable restricted drivers and compiz was turned on by default).

Uh no it's not for me, it wasn't turned on by default on my old laptop... Maybe it's turned off by default on every computer but if the graphics card can handle it, it then turns it on. Having it turned on by default would seriously mess with computers that can't handle it.

My friend's laptop that also can handle Compiz with no restricted drivers had to turn on Compiz manually. Okay, I did it for him, but same thing. I don't remember Compiz being turned on by default for me (I don't need restricted drivers. For some reason all of the desktop computers I have end up with an Intel integrated card :P)

[fatality_uk]

Me. I use it all, well a lot of it ;) My gfx card is powerful enough and it looks groovy

[xeth_delta]

Compiz on KDE almost always enabled here. Laptop with intel GMA950.

Plug-ins used: Desktop Cube, Expo, Rotate Cube, Animations, Fading Windows, Window decorator, Window Previews, Scale Windows, Video Playback, Workarounds (Qt window fix, Java Window Fix, Notification Daemon Fix, Firefox Menu fix).

Reasons for using it, I like the look of it and some of the plug-ins are useful to me.

Currently no noticeable stability problems. At the beginning there were several window manager crashes, but such events are extremely rare now. Why? I am not sure, but I am really glad that is the case. I can play videos and music.

Performance, actually running well at the LCD native resolution of 1280x800. Grapchics speed obviously decrease a bit for some plug-ins when having a lot of windows open, considering the card is just an integrated model.

To the OP. What problems do you have when playing music? That sounds really odd.

[ajgreeny]

I also use it most of the time with the cube, skydome, wobbly windows and reflection working well with my ati 9200SE card out of the box. I need to disable it sometimes as it can make big flash movies jumpy, but I do that when needed with Compiz-switch from forlong, a very useful little script which works brilliantly.

[MONODA]

To the OP. What problems do you have when playing music? That sounds really odd.
when i double click a file sometimes it says that it could present a security risk and that I should not run it if i did not create it. theres a way to fix it but still. For videos I sometimes only hear the sound but see green adn pink in the window.

[FuturePilot]

I use it all the time. Never had a problem with it. Except on my old laptop which can't handle it.
0.6.2 is in the backports by the way.

[forrestcupp]

Random Closeing effects.
Those are my favorite.


Also despite the cube being 'activated' and checked off in the options, I can't use it and there are no keybindings for ANY feature

Did you also enable the 'Rotate Cube' effect. It's a 2nd effect and it is the one with the settings to rotate. If that still doesn't get it, you may have to go into the General Options in the Desktop Size tab and set the Horizontal Virtual Size to 4. Doing those things should fix your problem.

[xeth_delta]

when i double click a file sometimes it says that it could present a security risk and that I should not run it if i did not create it. theres a way to fix it but still. For videos I sometimes only hear the sound but see green adn pink in the window.

Do you mean that the message appears when opening an audio file? That seems really strange. I don't remember having ever seen such a message, in Linux that is. To me this does not seem to be related to compiz. What was the solution or work-around you found?

[xeth_delta]

Also despite the cube being 'activated' and checked off in the options, I can't use it and there are no keybindings for ANY feature.


Might be related to how the configurtion file is stored. It has happened to me in the past that changes were not kept. The solution I found was to switch between "GConf/KDE configuration backend" and "flat file configuration backend.

[Paqman]

Love it! I find machines without an animated desktop really boring to use now. I've found the cube makes using multiple desktops much easier and more intuitive.

[Joeb454]

I use it, not all the ridiculous effects like Fire etc.

I have the cube, and some of the Window Switching feature's :)

[John T. Monkey]

Funnily enough, I've been using it for the last week, and it's nice. I particularly liked being able to scale back the windows

I found my computer very slightly slower though, and it started to annoy me so I've just disabled it.

...Ah well...

[jpittack]

I can't really use it. There is a bug that takes Battle for Wesnoth into windowed mode, back to full screen, back to windowed, etc.

[xeth_delta]

Funnily enough, I've been using it for the last week, and it's nice. I particularly liked being able to scale back the windows

I found my computer very slightly slower though, and it started to annoy me so I've just disabled it.

...Ah well...

It might be that your system was too slow to handle it or that you did not have 3d hardware acceleration enabled in the driver, hence the CPU had to do all the 3d operations, someting that is really slow.

If you want some feedback on this you could supply your system specs.

[xeth_delta]

I can't really use it. There is a bug that takes Battle for Wesnoth into windowed mode, back to full screen, back to windowed, etc.

AFAIK OpenGL applications don't behave completely normal under compiz, you will notice flicker. Maybe your problem is also related to this. When I was using Beryl, with iys window manager enabled I could not even start FlightGear. Now I can run it with compiz enabled, but just make sure all the other windows are minimized to avoid the flicker.

So, for now, my recommendation would be to disable compiz while playing games.

Any corrections to this are welcome.

[MONODA]

the workaround I found for playing audio files was right clicking and clixking on open with, VLC

[PurposeOfReason]

I use the git repo (which in theory should be more unstable) and have no problems with it. Then again, I just use zoom, cube, wobbly windows, and simple animations like zoom.

[vishzilla]

I have no problems with it. Yet, I prefer keepin it disabled

[klange]

AFAIK OpenGL applications don't behave completely normal under compiz, you will notice flicker. Maybe your problem is also related to this. When I was using Beryl, with iys window manager enabled I could not even start FlightGear. Now I can run it with compiz enabled, but just make sure all the other windows are minimized to avoid the flicker.

The DRI developers are already working on implementing a fix in the form of DRI2. Unfortunately, Hardy won't get it as it's not even fully integrated yet and Compiz doesn't start - I can say from experience.

Any problems you have playing audio files have nothing (at all) to do with Compiz - it's just a compositor. Video files on the other hand, you may need to switch to a different rendering system (I suggest just using the 'x11' rendering setting. It uses the CPU to render, but the videos will always appear and transform, unlike with Xv which has differing results on different cards)

[forrestcupp]

I can't really use it. There is a bug that takes Battle for Wesnoth into windowed mode, back to full screen, back to windowed, etc.

I've found that it happens because the screen saver is kicking in. If you turn off your screen saver, or set it for a long time, it may take care of your problem.

[pedrotuga]

the answer to the topic title question is:
kids. Those that fancy the looks because they don't really know what to llok for in order to achieve a 1337 status among their friends.
Nothing wrong with that, when i was younger I remember how cool i thought it was to be able to change the look of windows 95.

I turned on compiz once to show my girlfriend, she thought is was kind of cool looking, that was all. After five minutes I turned it off again as I don't get the point of having jelly windows, transparent titlebars and a cube desktop switcher.

Not to be a **** in here, but can somebody tell me one single example of encreased usability because of using compiz?

Compiz is not a feature, is a toy, for playing, therefore is totally useful for other purposees than play. Not so much to add in here.

Despite that, I think it's good that is included by default in ubuntu for pure marketing reasons.

[speedwell68]

the answer to the topic title question is:
kids. Those that fancy the looks because they don't really know what to llok for in order to achieve a 1337 status among their friends.
Nothing wrong with that, when i was younger I remember how cool i thought it was to be able to change the look of windows 95.

I turned on compiz once to show my girlfriend, she thought is was kind of cool looking, that was all. After five minutes I turned it off again as I don't get the point of having jelly windows, transparent titlebars and a cube desktop switcher.

Not to be a **** in here, but can somebody tell me one single example of encreased usability because of using compiz?

Compiz is not a feature, is a toy, for playing, therefore is totally useful for other purposees than play. Not so much to add in here.

Despite that, I think it's good that is included by default in ubuntu for pure marketing reasons.

WHS^^^

[forrestcupp]

Not to be a **** in here, but can somebody tell me one single example of encreased usability because of using compiz?


There have been plenty of discussions about this already. Different people have different purposes for it.

I personally don't use wobbly windows. For me, the zoom feature comes in very handy sometimes. Also, I love the ability to make windows incrementally transparent with my mouse wheel. It allows me to easily copy information from a window underneath my working window. It also is good in the gimp for tracing something else.

The Window Preview effect is helpful. The Scale Windows is especially helpful for people who want to get rid of panels, and it's nice anyway.

Some people are naturally more 'visual' people, and it helps them understand what is going on when a window is minimized and they see it sucked down to the panel. And seeing the workspaces on a movable cube makes it easier for those people to understand how it works.

But overall, the point of compositing is to take the work of processing the graphics of window management off of the CPU and onto the video card where it belongs. When all of the kinks are worked out between xorg, video card drivers, and Compiz, it will be the optimum way to do things.

Edit:
Not to mention that the world is shifting toward a more beautiful experience, and this helps us to keep up with the times.

[xeth_delta]

the answer to the topic title question is:
kids. Those that fancy the looks because they don't really know what to llok for in order to achieve a 1337 status among their friends.

can somebody tell me one single example of encreased usability because of using compiz?

Compiz is not a feature, is a toy, for playing, therefore is totally useful for other purposees than play. Not so much to add in here.

Despite that, I think it's good that is included by default in ubuntu for pure marketing reasons.

I guess it is up to a personal level. Almost nobody else than me uses or sees my laptop, so at least for me the "show off" of the effects is clearely not the main purpose. I do it for myself. So, I would slightly disagree with your opinion, but that is fine.

Usability: I agree that many of the plug-ins are mainly for fun, but some of then are quite useful to me. The fact that a person does not find something practical, does not mean others won't either.

I program for my thesis and I use a lot of windows simultaneosly on different desktops. Being able to see all desktops "from the far" and being able to rapidly locate the one that contains the window I am looking for, is of great help. The same goes with the "expose" function, though I don't use it very often, when I can't find a window it helps me see all that is open at the moment.

I normally do not use the mouse to switch between windows. I use "alt-tab" and the application sqitcher comes handy for me here since it switches imediately to the window in the picker, not after releasing the keys. It might be possible in the standard application switcher, too, but I have not noticed it.

In my view Compiz is a a feature, whether a person finds it useful or not is completely a different matter. As you can see, it is helpful to me, while other people might find it a nuissance. I do not believe it was developed as a marketing tool in the first place. It is open source, it can be downloaded freely of charge. IMHO it was developed because it could be done with the current hardware and because it can improve the appearance of the graphical interface and there is people that appreciate aesthetics, if they are available.

With the following ideas I will end this rather long post. I use it because, in my case, it improves usability and because I like my desktop to look nice, different, customized and not plain vanilla. I enjoy looking at some of the effects and the aesthetics compiz can offer.

With that in mind, it is up to every single person how they choose whether they want or not 3D accelerated interfaces, that is one of the reasons why we use Open Source software, after all, to have the freedom to choose :)

Good luck!

[kamaboko]

I use Compiz in a limited capacity. I'm not into the spinning boxes and the overly crazy eye candy.

[ingvildr]

I use it like a metacity with drop shadow, only problem i have with compiz is that so far it doesn't work on my dual monitors, so i have to turn one off.

[PurposeOfReason]

I use it like a metacity with drop shadow, only problem i have with compiz is that so far it doesn't work on my dual monitors, so i have to turn one off.

If all you want are shadows look into xcompmgr, it's much lighter.

[PiggiePaul]

Let me just say this:

If it was not for Compiz Fusion I'd not be here now!

Hate me, if you like, but I suspect I'm not alone with being drawn to finding out more after seeing what Compiz can do on a YouTube clip.

I had Ubuntu installed on an old PC I bought a couple of years ago. Played with it for a few hours, gave up and put Windows2000 onto it.

Thinking, it was not bad, but all too complicated.

Then just recently, (can't remember why) but I was browsing YouTube and came across this exact clip:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_ImW0-MgR8I

This clip alone started me again looking at Linux, and Ubuntu and meaning now for the past 3 weeks I have not loaded up Windows.

I still have wobbly windows, I still have my sticky sides (though they are a pain) my cube of course, and a few other bits.

Yes, it's Eye Candy, Yes (if anything) at times it actually gets in the way, BUT I'd never be here without it.

I'm sure if more people saw that, and other Compiz Clips the Ubuntu ranks would swell even more, which can only be good in the long term.

[bruce89]

If all you want are shadows look into xcompmgr, it's much lighter.

AFAIK Metacity's compositor uses xcompmgr's source.

I couldn't stand the usablilty and normal bugs in compiz. Especially since the developers say "It's not our problem" when it clearly is.

[SomeGuyDude]

Fortunately, Compiz is bug-free on my system. As a result, I practically need it to breathe when computing. Here's an example of a little thing I use a LOT:

I have "move window" set to 80% opacity. Now when I have a terminal open and I'm doing something that requires instructions, I don't need to change windows, a quick click on the top bar and the window goes 20% transparent and I can see the instructions behind it. Tiny time saver, but makes things easier.

[smartboyathome]

If all you want are shadows look into xcompmgr, it's much lighter.

I tried xcompmgr on E17, but ran into stability problems (yes, for me it was less stable than compiz), so I am awaiting Compiz's port to E17 to be complete. :)