Category Archives: Compiz

Compiz Compositing Window Manager for X Windowing System

Compiz Release Announcement – 0.8.14

It’s time for Compiz Reloaded 0.8.14. Here is the changelog:

– Whisker menu resize bug fix
– Improved horizontal and vertical maximizing
– Removed the “Number of Desktops” option
– Fixed crash when displaying special characters in gtk-window-decorator and emerald
– Set rotate and wall default flip bindings to None, which mitigates the problem where edges of screen are unclickable
– Fix potential for skydome silently failing to render
– Don’t fallback for exceeding max texture size
– Improved –button-layout behavior for gtk-window-decorator
– Updated translations
– Introduced window state selector in ccsm
– Improvements to elements, staticswitcher, static and notification plugins
– Added more colorfilters
– Added models for cubemodel plugin
– Added default enabled option for stars, fireflies, wizard and snow
– Increase maximum text size for relevant plugins
– Added earth plugin (built where libcurl and libglew dependencies are available)

The packages can be found here.

There is a script available to install the compiz suite. To use it:

Step 1) – Install Xubuntu 17.04 or your debian-based Linux distribution flavor with sudo installed.

Step 2) – Install git

$ sudo apt-get install git

Step 3) – Download the build script set. Optionally omit ‘-b release-0.8.14’ to build latest compiz-reloaded git master

$ git clone git://northfield.ws/compiz/scripts -b release-0.8.14

Step 4) – Run the INSTALL script

$ ./scripts/go

Step 5) – Start ccsm by typing ccsm in the terminal and verify it runs

$ ccsm

Step 6) – Enable basic plugins such as Window Decoration, Move Window, Place Window, Resize Window and maybe Wobbly so you know it’s working

Step 7) – Start compiz with

$ compiz --replace ccp

Step 8) – Start a compiz window decorator

$ gtk-window-decorator --replace

If everything is working, then congratulations! If not, you can ask in #compiz or #compiz-reloaded on chat.freenode.net or file an issue on github.

The script set includes an uninstall script used to remove everything if needed. Run ./scripts/uninstall to use it.

This version of compiz and other 0.8.x versions may conflict with any 0.9.x compiz, ccsm, emerald or other compiz 0.9.x components.

DISCLAIMER: Not responsible for crazed kittens, disgruntled gnomes or volcanic paint eruptions.

Enjoy!

Compiz Release Announcement – 0.8.12

Hello again. We have joined forces with the mate-compiz team and adopted the new name, Compiz Reloaded. We’ve also moved to github and Compiz 0.8.12 is ready. Here is the changelog:

– Add font family configuration for plugins that draw text such as Group/Tab, Scale Window Title Filter and Workspace Names plugins
– Lessen probability of “white glitches” that happen on resize using gtk-window-decorator and emerald
– gtk-window-decorator, emerald, ccsm, simple-ccsm and fusion-icon support both gtk2 and gtk3
– Fix right click near top edge of maximized windows in gtk-window-decorator and emerald
– Add an option to emerald-theme-manager to disable shading when titlebar is scrolled
– Rename plugins-unsupported to plugins-experimental and add many more plugins
– Change minimum and default amount of waves to 0 for Magic Lamp animation
– Add support for a Super Maximize button in emerald (toggles fullscreen)
– Various fixes for ccsm, simple-ccsm and fusion-icon
– Address vs problem more fully
– Increase maximum Mipmap LOD for Blur plugin
– Move Desktop Wall plugin to core
– Lots of additional Mate support
– Fix crash related to animations
– Fix memory leaks in emerald

The packages can be found here.

There is a script used to install the compiz suite. To use it:

Step 1) – Install Xubuntu 15.10 or your variant of debian-based Linux distribution with sudo installed.

Step 2) – Install git

$ sudo apt-get install git

Step 3) – Download the build script set. Optionally omit -b release-0.8.12 to build latest compiz-reloaded master

$ git clone git://northfield.ws/compiz/scripts -b release-0.8.12

Step 4) – Run the INSTALL script

$ ./scripts/go

Step 5) – Start ccsm by typing ccsm in the terminal and verify it runs

$ ccsm

Step 6) – Enable basic plugins such as Window Decoration, Move Window, Place Window, Resize Window and maybe Wobbly so you know it’s working

Step 7) – Start compiz with

$ compiz --replace ccp

Step 8) – Start a compiz window decorator

$ gtk-window-decorator --replace

If everything is working, then congratulations! You can add ‘gtk-window-decorator’ (without quotes) to ccsm>Effects>Window Decoration>Command field so gtk-window-decorator starts when compiz does. If not, you can ask in #compiz or #compiz-reloaded on chat.freenode.net. Enjoy!

AUDIENCE: This information is targeted toward those familiar with Linux distributions and FOSS.

INFORMATION: The script set includes an uninstall script used to remove everything. Run ./scripts/uninstall to use it.

WARNING: This software and other 0.8.x versions may conflict with any 0.9.x compiz, ccsm, emerald or other compiz 0.9.x components.

DISCLAIMER: Not responsible for unhappy camping, confused vulkans or exploding pixels.

Compiz Release Announcement – 0.8.10

It took a bit of setup and cook time but compiz 0.8.10 tarballs are ready now including addons-experimental plugin package. Anyone who has installed compiz before knows it can be confusing so here, I will focus on installing 0.8.10 using the tarballs.

Step 1)  –  Install Xubuntu 14.10 or your variant of *buntu based Linux distribution with sudo installed.

Step 2)  –  Open a terminal

Step 3)  –  Install git

$ sudo apt-get install git

Step 4)  –  Download the build scripts with

$ git clone git://northfield.ws/compiz/scripts -b release-0.8.10

Step 5)  –  Run the INSTALL script

$ ./scripts/INSTALL

terminal

Step 6)  –  Start ccsm by typing ccsm in the terminal and verify it runs

$ ccsm

Step 7)  –  Enable basic plugins such as Window Decoration, Move Window, Place Window, Resize Window and maybe Wobbly so you know it’s working

Step 8)  –  Start compiz with

$ compiz –replace ccp

Step 9)  –  Open another terminal

Step 10)  –  Start a compiz window decorator

$ emerald –replace

If everything is working, then congratulations! You can add ’emerald’ (without quotes) to ccsm>Effects>Window Decoration>Command field so emerald starts when compiz does.  If not, you can ask in #compiz or #northfield on irc.freenode.net using your IRC client or visit wiki.compiz.org. Enjoy!

AUDIENCE: This information is targeted toward those familiar with Linux distributions and GNU open source software.

INFORMATION: The compiled runtime executable files and libraries will be installed to /usr/ and icons for ccsm can be found in /usr/share/ccsm/icons/hicolor/scalable/. Emerald includes emerald-theme-manager which can be run from a terminal. To remove, run ‘make uninstall’ in each of the source directories in ~/src/compiz/.

WARNING: This software and other 0.8.x versions may conflict with any 0.9.x compiz, ccsm, emerald or other compiz 0.9.x components.

DISCLAIMER: Not responsible for soggy corn flakes, mistreated kittens or spontaneously combusting laptops.

Compiz Maintenance

Hello again. It’s been awhile and now it’s time for another blog post. Included are the details of a compiz maintenance routine outline and release schedule preview.

For those that do not keep track, here is a general overview. My name is Scott Moreau and I’ve been working on compiz for about 8 years by wearing the hats of support, script writer, code contributer and now, maintainer. Over time, many left the project entirely. In the past 4 years, I have been maintaining the official upstream compiz with the assistance of long time server maintainer, Guillaume Seguin. Fortunately, it hasn’t been too much work and graphics drivers have improved greatly thanks to companies like Intel, AMD, RedHat, Novell, Canonical, Collabora, Mozilla, Google, Valve and the many interesting people they’ve employed. Without further ado, here is the general road map outline as it stands currently:

1) Take a snapshot of the preserved original C implementation  of all compiz components (currently 0.8.9) including patches we’ve tossed in to keep things going, and make a release dubbed 0.8.10.

2) Test thoroughly

2b) Bump version to 0.8.11

3) Work out obvious, easily fixable problems and consider small improvements, with a strong focus on defaults.

4) Make an eventual 0.8.12 release, when it’s ready.

5) …

 

I am working on plugins-experimental, a collection of plugins that never really saw the light of day. Not only are these great plugins, but I would like to present this as a celebration of their works and contributions to compiz development throughout the years.

Finally, I would like to thank all of the contributers, developers and testers alike, especially those that have worked hard to improve open source software we cherish today and will continue to use for many years to come. Here is a list of talented individuals, sorry if I’m forgetting anyone.

Sam Lantinga

Ryan Gordon

Richard Goedeken

David Reveman

Pierre Bourdon

Dennis Kasprzyk

Danny Baumann

Guillaume Seguin

Sam Spilsbury

David Richards

Kristian Hoegsberg

Pekka Paalanen

Kristian Lyngstøl

Dave Airlie

All the testers and users worldwide…