Compiz Fusion
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Managed by: opencompositing.org
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Current Stable Release: 0.6.0
License: GPL
Compiz Fusion is a collection of plugins and a configuration system for the Compiz compositing window manager for the X Window System. Compiz Fusion is the result of a merge between the Compiz community plugin set "Compiz Extras" and the parts of the Beryl project that are independent of the window manager core. At the same time, Beryl has been discontinued and Compiz will add some of the core changes made by Beryl to the Compiz core. The aim of the project is to port almost all of the features of Beryl to Compiz plugins, and continue to write further Compiz plugins.
The original Compiz was one of the first compositing window managers. It used hardware accelerated graphics to add effect to an already running X session. The effects, such as a minimization effect and a cube workspace are implemented as loadable plugins. Compiz conforms to the ICCCM standard and as such can substitute for the default Metacity in GNOME or KWin in KDE. Compiz brings some of the features found in competitors, such as Exposé in Apple's Mac OS X and an Alt-Tab application-switcher that uses live previews, instead of just icons. Compiz is built on the Composite extension to X and benefits greatly from the OpenGL extension GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap. The first version of Compiz was released by Novell (SUSE) in January 2006 in the wake of the also new Xgl.
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[edit] Installation
[edit] Intalling Compiz Fusion on Debian based systems
In Debian systems, Shame's repo is available for Compiz Fusion installation through apt-get. To use this repository, add the following source to /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/shames/debian-sid/desktopfx/unstable/ ./
Then, the repositories are gpg signed and you can obtain the key by typing the following command in a terminal as root:
wget http://download.tuxfamily.org/shames/A42A6CF5.gpg -O- | apt-key add -
Once done above steps, you can install the packages to run Compiz Fusion on KDE with this command:
apt-get install compiz-fusion-kde
Or the packages to run Compiz Fusion with GNOME:
apt-get install compiz-fusion-gnome
For installing all Compiz Fusion packages, you can simply use:
apt-get install compiz-fusion-all
Compiz Fusion is slated as a feature in Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon and will come pre-installed.
[edit] Configuration
[edit] nVidia cards
In order to tweak Compiz Fusion performance, there are some suggested changes for the X.Org configuration file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf), being the easiest way to do so:
nvidia-xconfig --composite
nvidia-xconfig --allow-glx-with-composite
nvidia-xconfig --render-accel
nvidia-xconfig --add-argb-glx-visuals
The same procedure can be done manually editing the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
Under Section "ServerLayout", add:
Option "AIGLX" "False"
Under Section "Module", add:
Load "glx"
and comment:
Load "glcore"
Load "dri"
Under Section "Device", add:
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "True"
Option "DisableGLXRootClipping" "True"
Option "RenderAccel" "True"
Option "DamageEvents" "True"
Option "UseEvents" "False"
Option "TripleBuffer" "True"
Option "BackingStore" "True" # Use with caution
Under Section "Extensions", add:
Option "Composite" "Enable"
Under Section "Screen", add:
DefaultDepth 24
[edit] ATi cards
[edit] Running Compiz Fusion
To run Compiz Fusion, type the following in a terminal:
compiz –replace
For more advanced usage run:
compiz -h
If Fusion Icon is installed, you can you use it to run compiz fusion instead of the above command:
fusion-icon
