With my new card, I also tried out compiz for an hour or so. That is an
hour I won't get back.

So now you know how the trend is set, you can decide wether you stop
reading or hear me moan some more about this horror of horrors.

So here we go.

My background on it:
I must say that I heard about Compiz and Beryl and saw them on
presentations, I had no idea what they were exactely. I thought they
were two programs that did the same thing, like Firefox and Opera. The
place where I started was the openSUSE.org website. That was a HUGE
mistake as it did not explain anything clearly.
http://en.opensuse.org/Compiz starts with "What is Compiz?" and the goes
on about not answering the question.
The next is "Using compiz and its plugins" and goes on not explaining
that.

It then starts rambeling about plugins, but if I do not know what it is
or how to run it, it is useless information. It also fails to explain
with many plugins on how to use them.

At the end you finaly get some shortcuts. Great. Now I know the
shortcuts. They look like they were invented by a Emacs user. I also
know that Beryl is a fork.

OK, so no way in how to install it, so I lauch YaST and select
everything I think is related to compiz and login with KDE and try out
the shortcut and get nothing. I do another search on google and find the
page http://en.opensuse.org/Compiz_Fusion

So now there is not only Compiz and Veryl, but also Compiz Fusion. I
start to understand why Windows users think Linux is hard to use. _I_
have problems figuring it out.

So now we finaly have something to work with. The first check is NVidia.
Check. The second is Xgl. It also tells me I can 'try' AIGLX written as
if it seldom works, so I don't do that and go to
http://en.opensuse.org/Using_Xgl_on_SUSE_Linux where it tells me to do
some NVidia that I already did and then `gnome-xgl-switch --enable-xgl`
which produces an error.

Reading on I get pointed to yet another link
http://forum.beryl-project.org/viewt...t=922&start=30 where I
have to figure out that I need to do some editing, re-run sax2

I get much more confusing information that I have no idea what to do
with and just ignore it. I lok in again with KDE and lo and behold it
works.

I go back to http://en.opensuse.org/Compiz and try out the different
shortcuts. The only one I like is the transparency. All the others are
complete and utter crap. It is a pity developers waste their time on
things like this.

OK, so I get back to Windowmaker and lauch slrn on my semitransparant
terminal ans now that does not work anymore. Great. So I need to
de-install Compiz. No problem, I think.
http://en.opensuse.org/Compiz_Fusion#Remove_compiz where it says: run
these commands as root after disabling Xgl. So how do I disable it? So I
go back to http://en.opensuse.org/Compiz_Fusion....2FDisable_XGL
and see that I need to type `gnome-xgl-switch --disable-xgl` as root:
root@penne : gnome-xgl-switch --disable-xgl
/var/run/gdm.pid doesn't exist, perhaps GDM isn't running
WTF? So they expect to have me do the following steps each time I want
to go from Compiz to no Compiz:
1 Launch YaST
2 Hit "System"
3 Hit /etc/sysconfig editor
4 Expand "Desktop"
5 Expand "Display Manager
6 There is a string in there somewhere called "DISPLAYMANAGER_XSERVER"
Select it
7 In the drop down box, change Xgl to Xorg.
8 Log out
9 init 3
10 sax2 and configure
11 Launch YaST
12 Hit "System"
13 Hit /etc/sysconfig editor
14 Expand "Desktop"
15 Expand "Display Manager
16 There is a string in there somewhere called "DISPLAYMANAGER_XSERVER"
Select it
17 In the drop down box, change Xorg to Xgl.
18 init 5 & exit
19 log back in

So not only is it useless (exept perhaps for the transpararency), it is
also hard to use and hard to disable.

The reasons are twofold. First the information is all over the place.
The last time I saw something so all over the pkace was last night
outside and a student had placed its food on the street. Not a pretty
site. The instructions are written in a way that can only confuse
people. With one click install it should have been done better.

I have edited two pages to mae it hopefully not as painfull to get
working for others.

</rant>

I will probably check it out in the future, but I need to find out some
other things first. Most likely I will try it out with KDE.
1) How can I get a window active when going over it with my mouse? I did
the setting in both KDE and Compiz, yet no success.
2) Is there something like wmdrawer in KDE? That is not just one menu
that pops out, but several. That way I would not need to go to submenu's
in the main menu.

houghi
--
Personally, I think most sports fans are a little "gay". They'd
rather watch a bunch of sweaty guys jumping all over eachother,
than, say fashion TV - where hot models walk down the runway.

On Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:36:01 +0100, houghi wrote:

> With my new card, I also tried out compiz for an hour or so. That is an
> hour I won't get back.
>
<snip tale of woe>

I've had it running (more by luck than skill) for a while now and, of
course, many upgrades break it and then I spend hours getting it back
(the intellectual challenge!).

The only words of advice I can give are to ignore *everything* you read
about configuring it in KDE: install it, configure in Gnome, *then*
switch back to KDE.

And yes, its very pretty, mostly pointless, but *really* annoys windows
users when they see it...

central77 wrote:
> On Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:36:01 +0100, houghi wrote:
>
>> With my new card, I also tried out compiz for an hour or so. That is an
>> hour I won't get back.
>>
> <snip tale of woe>
>
> I've had it running (more by luck than skill) for a while now and, of
> course, many upgrades break it and then I spend hours getting it back
> (the intellectual challenge!).

Hehe. The main problem I have is that when I return to windowmaker, my
transparent aterm goes haywire.

> The only words of advice I can give are to ignore *everything* you read
> about configuring it in KDE: install it, configure in Gnome, *then*
> switch back to KDE.

OK, so better use Gnome-Panel Will give that a try.

> And yes, its very pretty, mostly pointless, but *really* annoys windows
> users when they see it...

That is true. If you have not yet tried Compiz, a good video of this can
be found here:

I will most likely be running it and see what the easiest is to emulate
Windowmaker, KDE or GNOME.

There are several things I would need in Copiz:
1) Several menu's and not just one
2) Click right to see a menu
3) Doubleclick the taskbar to shade
4) ...

I will also be looking at running Windowmaker from KDE and see what
happens there.

houghi
--
Personally, I think most sports fans are a little "gay". They'd
rather watch a bunch of sweaty guys jumping all over eachother,
than, say fashion TV - where hot models walk down the runway.

central77 wrote:
> On Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:36:01 +0100, houghi wrote:
>
>> With my new card, I also tried out compiz for an hour or so. That is an
>> hour I won't get back.
>>
> <snip tale of woe>
>
> I've had it running (more by luck than skill) for a while now and, of
> course, many upgrades break it and then I spend hours getting it back
> (the intellectual challenge!).
>
> The only words of advice I can give are to ignore *everything* you read
> about configuring it in KDE: install it, configure in Gnome, *then*
> switch back to KDE.
>
> And yes, its very pretty, mostly pointless, but *really* annoys windows
> users when they see it...

I agree. I tried it on a couple of machines and it was slow and broken
after the first update that got applied.

Shame because it looks really impressive.

houghi wrote:

> 2) Is there something like wmdrawer in KDE? That is not just one menu
> that pops out, but several. That way I would not need to go to submenu's
> in the main menu.

Without having used wmdrawer, I guess that something like a Quickbrowser
could work. In its basic form, create a directory, link to your
applications (or whatever) there. Drag and drop the directory to the
taskbar and select "add as quickbrowser."

--
Don

Don Raboud wrote:
> Without having used wmdrawer, I guess that something like a Quickbrowser
> could work. In its basic form, create a directory, link to your
> applications (or whatever) there. Drag and drop the directory to the
> taskbar and select "add as quickbrowser."

Almost. Is there a way to influence its behaviour? I would not like the
first two lines. The directory and the option to browse the directory.

Also it might be better to make a program.desktop file for it, so I can
name it whatever I like and can select an icon for it.

I asume activation if you go over it is not an option.

houghi
--
Personally, I think most sports fans are a little "gay". They'd
rather watch a bunch of sweaty guys jumping all over eachother,
than, say fashion TV - where hot models walk down the runway.

houghi wrote:

> Don Raboud wrote:
>> Without having used wmdrawer, I guess that something like a Quickbrowser
>> could work. In its basic form, create a directory, link to your
>> applications (or whatever) there. Drag and drop the directory to the
>> taskbar and select "add as quickbrowser."
>
> Almost. Is there a way to influence its behaviour? I would not like the
> first two lines. The directory and the option to browse the directory.

Not that I am aware of (other than in the source code...)

> Also it might be better to make a program.desktop file for it, so I can
> name it whatever I like and can select an icon for it.

You mean for the individual entries that are linked to? Probably. The icon
in the taskbar itself can be changed already.

> I asume activation if you go over it is not an option.

I assume you are correct.

--
Don

Don Raboud wrote:
>> Almost. Is there a way to influence its behaviour? I would not like the
>> first two lines. The directory and the option to browse the directory.
>
> Not that I am aware of (other than in the source code...)

Bummer. Why people limit themselves to one menu I will never understand.
They have 27.554.684 icons on their desktop that they can not get to
easily, yet the idea of having multiple menu's does not seem to pop up.

I have looked and I have not found a plugin that would do it. I am
unfortunatly not goof enough to do it.

>> Also it might be better to make a program.desktop file for it, so I can
>> name it whatever I like and can select an icon for it.
>
> You mean for the individual entries that are linked to? Probably. The icon
> in the taskbar itself can be changed already.

yes, I know you can change the icon. That way you can give proper names
to the items. e.g. I use 2 different scripts to start firefox. FF_L and
FF_R and a name like "Firefox" would be better then "FF_L". :-D

>> I asume activation if you go over it is not an option.
>
> I assume you are correct.

Not that much of an issue.

Another one is the ability to show how many mail is in some 20
mailboxes. Yet another is the easiness to change the border of
individual programs.

Not having the richt-click menu is also a downer.

I do like the semitransparency. I do not like that I am not able to do
what I want in an easy way.

I stopped using Enlightenment, because the configuration was too hard.
KDE is even harder. Mmm. Will try GNOME, perhaps it is possible there in
an easy way, although I can imagine that they also went for the 'change
everything, but only to what we want' apraoch.

houghi
--
You can have my keyboard ...
if you can pry it from my dead, cold, stiff fingers

On Sun, 2008-03-09 at 13:36 +0100, houghi wrote:
.....

I recommend compiz-fusion over compiz and beryl... compiz-fusion
is the future, the others are deprecated.

Agreeing somewhat with your rant, I feel that compiz-fusion
is best setup by somebody that knows how to set it up. And I agree
that ALL of the docs for openSUSE setup are just plain bad... especially
in the case of wanting a KDE decorator rather than Emerald.

I may do (yet another) compiz-fusion write up documenting what works
for me.

> I will probably check it out in the future, but I need to find out some
> other things first. Most likely I will try it out with KDE.

As KDE4 becomes more mature, KDE itself will have various compositing
features. No need for compiz-fusion. I think KDE4 is worse than KDE3
though... but I may be in the minority on that. Infrastructure wise,
KDE4 moves towards adopting more of the freedesktop.org stuff, but
at the expense of portability of KDE3 apps apparently (bad move by
the KDE team I think?). May take several versions before KDE4 comes
close to providing the functionality and stability found in KDE3.
We'll see (a TON of work left to do).

> 1) How can I get a window active when going over it with my mouse? I did
> the setting in both KDE and Compiz, yet no success.

In compiz-fusion, I just right click on the fusion icon and change
the Focus & Raise Behavior. Only compiz-fusion is acting as
a "window manager"... the KDE decorator is a compiz-fusion thing,
not a KDE thing.

> 2) Is there something like wmdrawer in KDE? That is not just one menu
> that pops out, but several. That way I would not need to go to submenu's
> in the main menu.

In KDE, any submenu item can become a menu button in the kicker panel.
each one having access to submenus contained inside of that menu...
perhaps I'm not full understanding what you are looking for though?

For example, right click on the kicker panel.

Do Add Application to Panel ... then locate the submenu option
of the KDE main menu you want and look at the top of the menu that
comes up and select Add This to Menu (of course that's not well
named at all, but that will add the submenu as a button on your
kicker panel).

>
> houghi

Chris Cox wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-03-09 at 13:36 +0100, houghi wrote:
> ....
>
> I recommend compiz-fusion over compiz and beryl... compiz-fusion
> is the future, the others are deprecated.

As said, there is no good explanation. I have no idea what the
differences are. I do not even know wich one I am running.

> Agreeing somewhat with your rant, I feel that compiz-fusion
> is best setup by somebody that knows how to set it up. And I agree
> that ALL of the docs for openSUSE setup are just plain bad... especially
> in the case of wanting a KDE decorator rather than Emerald.

I did not even know there was a difference.

> I may do (yet another) compiz-fusion write up documenting what works
> for me.

If possible, add a good link at the other pages. Also best write it ONLY
for 10.3 and beyond. If you later want to add 10.2 and others, it is
better to do that seperately, because now you see too many exeptions.

Also starting with a short version is a good idea. That will help about
95% of the people, without being confusing.
1) Click here to 1-install NVIDIA or ATI if you have not done so already
2) Run the following things as root
3) reconfigure with sax2
4) link to usage (key shortcuts and such)

below that you can add so much information you like, because almost
nobody will read that anyway, expept people looking to correct you. ;-)

> As KDE4 becomes more mature, KDE itself will have various compositing
> features. No need for compiz-fusion. I think KDE4 is worse than KDE3
> though... but I may be in the minority on that.

Son of Evil. :-D

> Infrastructure wise,
> KDE4 moves towards adopting more of the freedesktop.org stuff, but
> at the expense of portability of KDE3 apps apparently (bad move by
> the KDE team I think?).

Did they not do the same thing for 2 to 3?

> May take several versions before KDE4 comes
> close to providing the functionality and stability found in KDE3.
> We'll see (a TON of work left to do).

It was still unsure at FOSDEM if it would be implemented in openSUSE
11.0

>> 1) How can I get a window active when going over it with my mouse? I did
>> the setting in both KDE and Compiz, yet no success.
>
> In compiz-fusion, I just right click on the fusion icon and change
> the Focus & Raise Behavior. Only compiz-fusion is acting as
> a "window manager"... the KDE decorator is a compiz-fusion thing,
> not a KDE thing.

I did the change in the gnome change thing and now it works. Stoopid to
need to do it in three places and when running KDE and Compiz that GNOME
gives the solution.

>> 2) Is there something like wmdrawer in KDE? That is not just one menu
>> that pops out, but several. That way I would not need to go to submenu's
>> in the main menu.
>
> In KDE, any submenu item can become a menu button in the kicker panel.
> each one having access to submenus contained inside of that menu...
> perhaps I'm not full understanding what you are looking for though?
>
> For example, right click on the kicker panel.
>
> Do Add Application to Panel ... then locate the submenu option
> of the KDE main menu you want and look at the top of the menu that
> comes up and select Add This to Menu (of course that's not well
> named at all, but that will add the submenu as a button on your
> kicker panel).

I will look at this when I am home tonight.

houghi
--
The blue light suddenly flashed on my horrified face. What a disaster!
Oh, the humanity! I never thought it would happen to me. How terrifying
it is to see for yourself "*The Blue Screen of Death*".