[SOLVED]: Replacing Compton with Compiz

David Kuchta · **Joined:** Fri Jan 01, 2016 9:19 pm **Posts:** 3

I've been able to disable Compton and use Compiz as my compositor, but there's got to be an easier way to do it. Here's what I've done:

I disabled Compton by selecting Settings>Desktop Effects>None.
In Settings>Session and Startup>Application Autostart, I deselected Desktop Compositing.

I installed Compiz with: sudo apt-get install compiz compiz-plugins compizconfig-settings-manager
(I added Emerald via the WebUpd8 ppa, but that's optional.)

Typing “Compiz – replace” in a terminal let's me know it's working, but it wouldn't autostart merely by going to Settings>Session and Startup>Application Autostart>Add and creating an item for Compiz –replace. So I created compiz.desktop in /home/[user]/.config/autostart using which contains the following lines:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=0.9.4
Type=Application
Name=compiz
Comment=
Exec=compiz --replace
OnlyShowIn=XFCE;
StartupNotify=false
Terminal=true
Hidden=false

It works, but there must be an easier, cleaner method. Any better solutions?

Stephen Ewen · **Posted:** Fri Jan 01, 2016 10:42 pm

First, disable compton from running at startup by going to Settings menu > Administration > Session and Startup > Application Autostart and UNticking Desktop Compositing. Then, disable your autostart .desktop file for compiz and then open a terminal and run the following line:

Code:

xfconf-query -c xfce4-session -p /sessions/Failsafe/Client0_Command -t string -sa compiz

Then, log out and log back in.

I don't have compiz installed but that should do the job. Running the above line will create a file, xfce4-session.xml, at /home/[user]/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/ and should run compiz as the default window manager.

Does that work?

David Kuchta · **Joined:** Fri Jan 01, 2016 9:19 pm **Posts:** 3

Thanks, Stephen: Alas, that didn't work, but that may be because I've tinkered so much with my system trying to get Compiz to work before your instructions. I'll try your instructions on a new install on a spare partition to see if that works, then follow up here.

Thanks for a nice OS that I've used for the past few years. Well worth my $50 donation.

David Kuchta · **Joined:** Fri Jan 01, 2016 9:19 pm **Posts:** 3

On a clean install, your instructions worked great. Thanks!

David

Stephen Ewen · **Posted:** Sat Jan 02, 2016 4:09 am

Perfect!

I got it running, too. Probably, the reason it failed before is that a prior session was held in cache. I had to delete the contents of /home/[user]/.cache/sessions/* before everything worked as expected.

biplabro · **Posted:** Wed Mar 22, 2017 9:00 am

Stephen Ewen wrote:

Perfect!

I got it running, too. Probably, the reason it failed before is that a prior session was held in cache. I had to delete the contents of /home/[user]/.cache/sessions/* before everything worked as expected.

Thanks. The solution worked perfectly. Tested & running compiz on my Userstudent laptop.

biplabro · **Posted:** Wed Mar 22, 2017 4:17 pm

Facing a couple of issues after 6 hours of usage.

Issue-1
======
Compiz was running smoothly after first instance of rebooting but after that it only works in alternate reboots. The bottom panel freezes(single panel mode) & I have to restart the os. after that it works as desired & in the next reboot, the freezing occurs again.

When the freeze happens, Log out & re log-in also fixes the issue. Any suggestions to fix the session freezing issue?

Issue-2
======
The Uberstudent conky is no longer displayed on top of the desktop anymore. Conky is displayed after boot but when I click anywhere on the desktop, the conky disappears. How to run conky on top of the desktop permanently?

Any suggestions will be highly appreciated.
Regards,
Roy.

Stephen Ewen · **Posted:** Sun Mar 26, 2017 9:43 am

Compiz can be a whole lot of fun but it is notoriously buggy, according to its own developers, and per them it is not intended for production use. Conky becomes unstable with Compiz, among multiple other issues. This is why it's not installed by default in UberStudent. Kindly please consult http://forum.compiz.org/ for support with Compiz beyond the above in an Xfce-based system, such as UberStudent.

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[SOLVED]: Replacing Compton with Compiz

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