Revitalise your desktop with Compiz
Not more than two years ago, 3D graphics would only mean either something to a gamer or a CAD engineer. Now, 3D has entered into mainstream computing. Learn how the power of 3D graphics can help you make your desktop more beautiful and useful
Perform the following commands to add Compiz to the startup.
For KDE-based system (Kubuntu):
$ echo “compiz –replace” > ~/.kde/Autostart/startcompiz.sh
chmod +x ~/.kde/Autostart/startcompiz.sh$ cat ~/.kde/Autostart/startcompiz.sh
compiz –replace &
For GNOME-based system (Ubuntu):
Go to System>Preferences>Desktop Effects and click ‘Enable Desktop Effects’.
Configuring Compiz
The most straightforward way to
get started with Compiz is with Simple-CCSM. This is a very easy-to-use tool to configure Compiz…
Start Simple-CCSM using the command ‘simple-ccsm’. Upon startup, it may start the Compiz system if it’s not already running. On the top of the screen you will find the Profiles drop-down list; this contains a set of predefined settings. Various settings are categorised as tabs…
Animations: This lets you configure animations for common window actions: Open Window, Close Window, Focus Window and Minimize Window. You can select ‘Enable extra animations’ if you want more of them.
Effects: This lets you configure various effects. Here, you can select which type of application switcher (typically activated by Alt-Tab) you want to use, Cube Effects and other animations.
Desktop: Here you can select the way in which you can configure multiple desktops. You can also specify the number of desktops you want, as columns and rows.
Edges: Here you can select various actions that will be activated when you touch a screen edge with your pointer (typically a mouse pointer). This is very useful when you want to launch special actions just by touching an edge of the screen.
Learn how to enable a real 3D desktop using Compiz
3D was the big buzz at CES 2010 (Consumer Electronic Show) at Los Angeles. But those setups require you to wear 3D specs and buy a new 3D monitor/TV. How about enabling real 3D without needing to buy a new display? You will still need to get specs, but these can be made very easily at home (or you can buy them cheaply online). The technology we are talking about is stereoscopic 3D. This is a very cost-effective way of delivering 3D to the masses. There is a Compiz plug-in called Anaglyph, which enables stereoscopic 3D for any Compiz-enabled desktop. You can get a copy of the source from here. You will need to install compiz-dev packages to build this plug-in.
Compiz has become one of the most powerful compositing window managers of all. Standard desktop features like windows selection and multiple desktops see a complete overhaul with Compiz. Once you start using Compiz , you can never stop using it.
This article originally appeared in issue 84 of Linux User & Developer magazine.
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I agree that Compiz is a nice enhancement to the Linux desktop. While I have friends who eschew all such “eye candy” as a waste of processor time, I think eye candy makes for a more engaging computing experience. However, I’ve had to turn Compiz completely off on all my Ubuntu computers (4 of them, all running Ubuntu 9.10). I have grandchildren, and all of them have Club Penguin accounts. Firefox and Flash on Ubuntu works fine with Club Penguin until Compiz is enabled. Then, it doesn’t work at all. They can’t even log in.
I’ve not seen any other mention of this on the Web, and I’m not clever enough to fix it myself. So Compiz just stays off. Does anyone else who might see this know how to get it working?
Wow, talk about late to the party. I never thought I’d see another article pushing compiz. Considering right now it’s pretty much default on every distro known to man and likely to be phased out of distros as gnome 3 hits later this year.
@Michael You really think Compiz will phase out. It wont. Of course its name will change but what Compiz has started will never go away. This article also discusses real 3D using Compiz. Did you try that ?