Using Compiz on Ubuntu 10.04

Compiz is a compositioning manager / window manager for Linux. That means it is the software behind some really cool visual effects available in Ubuntu and other Linux distributions  In the GNOME desktop environment, Metacity is the default window manager (at least that’s still true in the version I’m currently using – Ubuntu 10.04), but Metacity is lightweight and doesn’t have as many cool effects as Compiz.  The following walkthrough will show you how to get started using Compiz instead.  Please note that you will pay a price for this eye candy in system resources, so those with older machines might want to stick with Metacity.

Get Ready to use Compiz

The first step is to ensure you are using the best driver for your video card.  Go to System → Administration → Hardware Drivers and see if there is a better driver available for your hardware.  I’ve always used NVidia cards, which aren’t the best choice for a Linux OS, but as long as you have the recommended driver they run fine. The next step is to install CompizConfig Settings Manager.  You should also ensure you have all the available plugins installed (compiz-fusion-plugins-extra). I prefer to simply open a terminal and type:

$ sudo apt-get install compiz-fusion-plugins-extra compizconfig-settings-manager

But you can also search for compiz-fusion-plugins-extra and compizconfig-settings-manager with Synaptic (System → Administration → Synaptic Package Manager) and install it that way.  Regardless, when you’re finished installing go to System → Preferences → CompizConfig Settings Manager. You should see the following window: What follows is a guide tailored to my own preferences.  Of course, you can play with the settings to match your own taste.  You shouldn’t be able to break anything, since conflicting settings will trigger a dialog that helps you resolve conflicts. I’ve outlined below which Compiz options I have enabled on my machine plus any settings I modified:

My Compiz Settings

General Category

• General Options – Under the Desktop tab, Change Horizontal Virtual Size to 4 (required for the Cube to work)
• Commands – Enabled by default
• Gnome Compatibility – Enabled by default

Accessibility Category

• Enhanced Zoom Desktop
• Negative

Desktop Category

• Desktop Cube – Under the Appearance tab, ensure the Skydome is enabled and animated, and download a good image for the skydome (there are some good ones here). Under the Transparent Cube tab, change the Opacity During Rotation to somewhere around 65.
• Rotate Cute – To avoid conflicts, disable Expo before enabling this
• Viewport Switcher – This has to be enabled if you want to be able to rotate your cube/cylinder/sphere.

Effects Category

• 3D Windows
• Cube Reflection and Deformation – When you enable this, you might be prompted to resolve conflicts. This plugin conflicts with Next Slide from the Desktop Cube plugin, so just disable Next Slide. Under the Cube caps tab, I have all the Bindings disabled; the top and bottom images are drawn, scaled, and clamped, but I disabled image adjustment and aspect ratio maintenance (they screw up the picture I put there); I changed the cube top and bottom colors to black and selected just one image each for the top and bottom (the same for both – one with black edges so it blends with the default color). If you like the one I’m using, you can find it here. Under the Reflection tab, I have reflection enabled, the Reflection ground size is about 0.34, the Intensity is at 1.0, and the Reflection mode is Jumpy. Under the Deformation tab, I chose a Sphere with an aspect ratio of 0.7 (The other options I left to default).
• Animations – These are the same as the Extra Visual Effects you can enable under System → Preferences → Appearance before you even download the CompizConfig Settings Manager.
• Fading Windows
• Window Decoration – Leave this enabled else the top of all your windows will disappear
• Wobbly Windows

Extras Category

• Window Previews

There are three more categories: Image Loading, Utility, and Window Management. However, I didn’t change any of the defaults in these categories. Here is a screenshot of my setup while switching virtual Desktops: Cool huh?  I think so. Anyway, it helps to know how to work all these effects once you have them enabled. When you’re using Compiz as the Window Manager, Compiz takes over operation of the GNOME Keyboard Shortcuts. So now you can view and edit the GNOME keyboard shortcuts along with the shortcuts for the new effects both from the CompizConfig Settings Manager. Since I’ve already discussed the GNOME Keyboard shortcuts on another post, I’ll limit this post to the shortcuts you can use after enabling the Compiz plugins mentioned above. Here is my list:

Compiz Keyboard Shortcuts

Ctrl+Alt+Left/Right/Mouse

Rotate desktop cube/cylinder/sphere

Shift+Ctrl+Alt+Left/Right

Rotate desktop cube/cylinder/sphere and drag the selected window to the new virtual desktop

Ctrl+Alt+Down

Unfold desktop cube/cylinder/sphere into a long strip, then hold Ctrl+Alt and use left/right to select desired virtual desktop

Super+n

Toggle window negative

Super+m

Toggle screen negative

Super+scroll

Zoom

Ctrl+Up

Maximize window vertically

Disable Compiz

Compiz can be buggy at times. I’ve had to hard restart after Compiz froze, but not recently. I’ve read that others have more problems with Compiz while running a fullscreen 3D game. If you are about to run an application that gives you problems on Compiz, just switch back to Metacity before you open the application. It’s easy to do: just open the Run Application dialog with Alt+F2 and type:

• metacity --replace

To turn Compiz back on, just use this command instead:

• compiz --replace