12 ms·

Compiz: Ubuntu Desktop's little known best friend

199 points by MattyRad 8y ago

coleifer 8y ago
Wobbly windows. Tiling. Emerald window decorations. Rotate cube. Endless possibilities.
kevinherron 8y ago
Or use KDE and have all of this out of the box :)
- kgwxd 8y ago
  Or use XFCE, get none of it, stop playing with your DE, and get back to work :)
  - marktangotango 8y ago
    Yes yes yes. A friend used to call compiz the “dancing balogney” of Linux. I agree.
  - pnloyd 8y ago
    XFCE is a true productivity DE. Gives you a few simple basic apps, and does a damn good job of managing windows. I so wish I could use it at work..
    - Jonnax 8y ago
      I don't get why KDE isn't considered a productive DE. The dolphin file manager has an integrated terminal that automatically changes folder to match the one you've browsed to. There's a ton of these small useful things that a light desktop like XFCE or LXDE wouldn't implement but are still useful.
      - cannonedhamster 8y ago
        KDE has too many options. That's the problem, there's too much desire to tweak just one more thing. By then you've blown a week of time. I've personally also had bad luck running KDE. I love the look however it's always run dog slow for me on any computer I've used it on when compared to other DEs. To each their own though, that's the beauty of GNU/linux.
        simion314 8y ago
        >KDE has too many options. This a user problem, maybe some personality or mental issue that makes you waste time or get scared when you see options. How you should approach this is to use KDE, then if you wonder ,"hi would be nice if I could put the notifications on left side since my right eye is bad -> then you go and find the option and move the notifications , Installing KDE and trolling to all options is a insane thing to do, do you also install Firefox and go into about:config and set all this options as you prefer ? Or you use Ff then ask , hey would be cool if Ff won't do this annoying thing , then you search the option and hope to find it
        vvillena 8y ago
        You're right, there's a desktop environment for everyone! And the good thing is that it isn't the wild west anymore. Almost all the DEs out there follow the common standards that make every app behave well, no matter what DE you're running. I'd recommend you to try KDE again. I run Arch Linux and KDE in my main work computer and I find the default config is awesome, there's no need to tweak anything, and it runs real fast (on the other hand I remember Kubuntu being slow). Of course, there are lots of advanced config settings, but there's no need to dig in. The default config is perfectly usable. Plus, the apps suite is where KDE really shines.
      - dTal 8y ago
        Whoa, that's awesome. I've used Plasma for a year now and I'm still doing Actions->Open Terminal Here like a dummy. Any other crazy feature tips? Plasma is great by the way. I think KDE's general busy look and poor performance over the years have really hurt its reputation - I tried it on a fast machine a few years back and it was just confusing and slow. But right now, in 2018, Plasma is easily the best desktop environment for ergonomics, features, and polish. It's really amazing what they've done with it. I encourage anyone who's written off KDE, like I did for many years, to give it another shot.
  - jszymborski 8y ago
    I find MATE a similar "back-to-basics" DE that I rather enjoy.
  - simion314 8y ago
    I use the Zoom effect in KDE for accessibility reasons not for playing around, compositing gives you more then fire and magic lamp effects, like it can invert colors, dim inactive windows, some animation can improve UX.
lxe 8y ago
"Little known?" Compiz was the hotness of the century about a decade ago. Fire effects on minimizing windows and the famous "cube" to switch desktops. Compiz definitely propelled Ubuntu and desktop Linux in general to where it is now. Check out this Google Trends chart to get the picture of where it was in 2007: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Compiz https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=C...
- Insanity 8y ago
  That brings me back :) I remember playing around with the fire and the raindrop effects. Totally useless stuff, but pretty cool!
  - senectus1 8y ago
    oh wow.. I knew I had seen that word before... yeah I remember Compiz now. loved playing with snap to jelly windows... the little things that make linux fun.
  - roenxi 8y ago
    It was interesting how the efforts at window decoration after Compiz never really seemed to get the useless-but-cool. I recall KDE adding some disappointing compositing effects that combined being useless with not looking very good. It was the difference between an exploration of a cool concept and someone checking a box. Compiz's best feature was it made changing virtual desktops an exciting and rewarding process. Their specific implementation of the Cube was genius.
    - CarVac 8y ago
      The best part about the cube is that it allows me to use my spatial memory to better remember what windows are open on which workspaces.
      - ehnto 8y ago
        Which is a technique some memory athletes use to remember things! They often use spatial cues like mentally placing a piece of information somewhere in a room or town. Maybe the brain prioritizes things placed in the world over ephemeral things.
marcoperaza 8y ago
I've never seen an expose knock-off that captured the magic. Even Apple managed to bungle it in recent releases. At it's peak, the feature really was perfect: perfectly smooth animation and a perfect-feeling organic layout. It didn't try to do too much and it didn't have an agenda of pushing some other feature down your throat.
- rickycook 8y ago
  i wouldn’t necessarily call it a knock-off. i could be wrong, but looks like spaces first came to OSX in 2006, which is the same year that compiz launched https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaces_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaces_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz
  - toyg 8y ago
    I think parent refers to the original Exposé, which didn't have multiple desktops but was first released in 2003 or 2004. That already had a few cool window animations.
  - SllX 8y ago
    Exposé predates Spaces by a couple of years. The two wouldn’t really be properly integrated (along with Dashboard which was practically abandonware even by this point) until Mission Control came along.
- CoolGuySteve 8y ago
  In Ubuntu 18.04 by default, if you hit the 'windows' key, you get a smooth old-style Expose effect that shows all the windows. The only differences are that if you type into that view, it searches Spotlight-style and off the right side there's an auto-hiding multi-desktop switcher. Both are tastefully descreet and strictly improvements imo.
- sosborn 8y ago
  Exposé is what made me see that 13-inch laptops are a viable option.
- 8y ago
joshstrange 8y ago
Um, Compiz is far from little known. When I was in high school (2005-2009) I remember installing linux for the first time on my main computer because of Compiz. The animations for switching between desktops looked very futuristic. It was cool to play with but because I built my computer for gaming Linux didn't really cut it for me. I even tried it again after watching a video about how WoW ran faster on wine on Linux than it did on XP. I distinctly remember the cube desktop switcher animation from Compiz in that video.
kbumsik 8y ago
Unfortunately, Compiz seems not to be actively maintained since 2016. It looks like the development is suddenly stopped. It is quite surprising to me considering the fame in the past. I'm kinda wondering what happened to them. [1]: https://launchpad.net/compiz https://launchpad.net/compiz
- iXce 8y ago
  Hasn't Ubuntu switched back to Gnome recently? Since ~2009 most of the effort was Canonical-sponsored. The C++ rewrite was quite a dealbreaker in the flow of the project (which was originally written in C). The time it took to get the rewrite up and running and the language switch had a great toll on the motivation of the contributors.
- pnloyd 8y ago
  Huge amounts of fragmentation in the dev community for one.. there were several major forks.
  - iXce 8y ago
    that was a long time back (2007) though, when the original dev was not willing to integrate contributions
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    What else could possibly have happened? Fragmentation is the favorite sport of Linux devs.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- soneil 8y ago
  My understanding (and I could be entirely wrong) was that compiz was never actually meant to be as big as it was. Compositing was desirable for perfectly mundane reasons, and compiz was a rather cheesy tech demo. I always found it amusing that while I considered compiz a novel way to test that compositing was functioning, others considered it the entire reason to switch DEs, or even OSes.
jlarocco 8y ago
To each their own, but I really don't like the Compiz style of window managers. I have better things to watch than my windows moving around.
- pnloyd 8y ago
  I appreciated the novelty as well, fast forward many years later and I'm doing a bunch of Googling figuring out how to disable the fancy animations on the work issued osx laptop.
  - wutbrodo 8y ago
    It's funny how common this story is in this thread; my first Linux system was Ubuntu + compiz and I loved every little effect; now that I'm old(er) and boring, I'm running a stripped-down Debian on i3wm. It's pretty amazing that I've managed to run such vastly different systems over the course a decade with only incremental changes and have it fit me like a glove the entire time.
    - flukus 8y ago
      Compiz was always about cool looking bling, it was never really meant to be functional, just something you could burn unused C/GPU cycles on and were usually only in a few places. When animation became more ubiquitous (in app) it got toned down a lot and when those sorts of animations are turned off you notice the speed increase and that your brain can do the visual diff just fine. There are still plenty of visual bling you can add to i3wm without sacrificing the "instantaneous" of it though.
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      During my Linux zealot years (started with Slackware 2.0 back in the day), I used to experiment and play with any window manager I could put my hands on. Nowadays I just use the default configuration of whatever OS I am on, just with some minimal configuration changes like icon size or mouse double click behavior.
      - 8y ago
Khaine 8y ago
Compiz kick started the belief that Linux "Year of the Desktop" could be a realt thing. Wobbly windows, fire and the cube were great demos to get people interested in Linux
- buboard 8y ago
  i never believed that hype, but i loved the wobbly gobbly effects. Given linux desktop's general unsatisfaction, they were making it quite fun. The fact that it didn't crash easily helped.
danimal88 8y ago
Sticky/Elastic windows was definitely my favorite compiz option. It was just so ridiculous and entertaining.
canada_dry 8y ago
I've been using Ubuntu/Compiz for a couple years and it has some annoying quirks e.g. child windows that pop up on the wrong monitor! (thank goodness for WIN+SHIFT+arrow keys!!) But... I have NO desire to go back to Win(10/8) horrible user/developer experience.
- Townley 8y ago
  How did I not know about this keyboard shortcut until now?!? Being able to move a window between different monitors is such a great feature. Thank you so much. Life will never be the same.
  - ehnto 8y ago
    Hold down the Windows key to get a nifty shortcut cheat sheet.
  - canada_dry 8y ago
    Merry Christmas! Now if someone can fix another bloody annoying thing i.e.: file dialog box... filename is highlighted... start typing... it directs the input somewhere else (into a search field). Such a basic and annoying UI faux pas!
upbeatlinux 8y ago
Wow, this takes me back to 2004 or 2005. I put together a compiz/beryl demo using the flame effects and cube switch in 2005 or 2006. It help converted a few friends over to run Linux on their home PCs (OpenOffice, Thunderbird, Firefox, Gaim (Pidgin) and Citrix). The flame effects were really the wow factor that sold it. I think only one person stuck around past year 3 but it really help prove to me that non-tech folk could be somewhat productive on the Linux desktop. It also legitimized a Linux loner laptop in the laptop pool of the company where I was working at the time. Not too shabby for 2006.
hiisukun 8y ago
Compiz may be great but unless I am mistaken, these features are in a default gnome-shell install. Perhaps the Ubuntu version of gnome is very different to a Fedora install? On Fedora, the 'windows key' by default shows me a mission control esque view of all my open windows, and ctrl+alt+arrow keys moves to other virtual desktops. They can be changed to directly from the right hand side of the 'mission control' overview. Are these features both off/disabled on Ubuntu?
- arbol 8y ago
  Yep, this is what I was thinking. Ubuntu 18.04
tscherno 8y ago
There is also bumptop from roughly the same time period https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ODskdEPnQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ODskdEPnQ
- DanBC 8y ago
  Nooface has a collection of weird desktops. It's no longer maintained, so here's the Wayback machine link: https://web.archive.org/web/20070226171735/http://nooface.net/3dui.shtml https://web.archive.org/web/20070226171735/http://nooface.ne...
IloveHN84 8y ago
Little?10 years ago was the main way to get nice desktop effects
edhelas 8y ago
One page 30Mb of GIF files. I know that people likes autoplayed animation but please try to use <video/> tags. It can saves a lot of bandwidth and improve greatly the experience (especially on mobile).
COil 8y ago
I used Compiz with 17.04 and it was nice, but I decided to give a shot at the native Gnome with 18.04 when I reinstalled from scratch. To be honest, it's not perfect but it does the job. So I will stick with it. And I don't want to install something that is not maintained anymore.
asianthrowaway 8y ago
So it seems that a good chunk of us got interested in computers and programming due to wobbly windows. I guess that's Compiz' main legacy, heh.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
I'm not sure why so many people here are arguing with the "little known" part. Like many of you I owe a lot to compiz due to trying to get wobbly windows working 10+ years ago. But my mother has never heard of it, despite the fact that she'd have a vague idea of what "Linux" is if I asked her. That's the point.
- MattyRad 8y ago
  Yeah, I mostly titled the article due to younger engineers not being aware of how configurable Ubuntu can be (or them possibly being intimidated by Ubuntu). I didn't anticipate so many compiz greybeards would check it out, haha.
rerpha 8y ago
Having flashbacks to the cube with gears in that everyone used to love. I hate animations now, they make the desktop feel less responsive in my opinion.
filmgirlcw 8y ago
As others have said, total throwback to 2005/2006 for me — my last proper attempt to make Linux everyday OS. The early Ubuntu days were so fun! I remember ordering the free CDs for Warty Warthog (Which I still have somehere), just for fun - absolutely installing that initial release, alongside some Compiz/Beryl packages in an attempt to have fun. And then I remember upgrading to Hoary Hedgehog either early or right on its release — and downloading a brand new show that ABC was airing called “Grey’s Anatomy” — that I was angry had forced my favorite show “Boston Legal” into early hiatus. I have distinct memories of watching the pilot in one of the rotating cubes — but Wikipedia indicates Compiz’s initial release was later so I may have used a pre-release or another WM effect thing. Anyway. It’s nearly 14 years later. Grey’s Anatomy is one of the longest-running TV dramas of all time. It’s creator signed a huge deal with Netflix after basically turnjjg Thursday nights into the biggest night on TV for ABC, and apparently, wobbly Windows are still a thing. The Tumblr Pop Culture Died in 2009 is correct. Also, #getoffmylawn because I’m now in my 30s and old!
- colemickens 8y ago
  This comment was fun to read. I'm a couple years younger, but that Boston Legal part hit like a truck. Maybe it was the suggestion, but I can't knock the mental image of wasting hours futzing with compiz/Beryl/fuzion with Denny Crane in the background. Thanks for the nostalgia trip and smile!
digitalzombie 8y ago
I remember using Sabayon Linux way in the early days it came with or probably I tweaked it with Compiz and Beryl. The ATI drivers were something. So bleeding edge distro that it was crashing randomly. I had a 6 sides cube with each side representing a different desktop screen and wall paper. Fun times.
yason 8y ago
I still remember when Gnome 2 reached its peak with Ubuntu in the early 2000's. It was pretty much the complete, reliable, configurable, and robust desktop that Linux ever needed. Anything since that has been a downhill, with new features being presented at the expense of other features and no-frills-but-functional design. I sometimes feel for Windows users whose basic desktop proposition has remained largely unchanged for quite a many years, disregarding some cosmetic updates. The endless need to change things eventually caused Gnome 2 to gradually become unavailable. It would've needed maintenance, updates to support new library versions, and nobody was interested. There's MATE but each time I've checked is a non-polished mess based on Gnome 2 codebase. The original Gnome 2 was lean and tidy on the surface with lots of power underneath, possibly thanks to curation by Ubuntu. The Gnome Classic in Ubuntu is okay-ish but it has a lot of leaky abstractions as well, and you feel it's sort of out of place. It takes some tweaking to change the window manager as the newer window managers tend not to be configurable enough so that I can't set my keyboard bindings to what I've had for decades. The only thing that does remain the same is the shell which I gladly accept. Having grow up using an Amiga, however, it still feels weird not to have a fully-integrated, native desktop GUI that very much defines the feel of the operating system itself. Gnome 2 had that chance. Other Linux environments before and after Gnome 2 are mostly just a shell to run terminals, the editor and the browser.
ArrayList 8y ago
Just reading the string "Compiz" gave me absolute nostalgia-whiplash.
BafS 8y ago
Lot of nostalgia. For those who want to try on mac you can have something similar with Deskovery
AltruisticGap 8y ago
Anyone know if this could solve VirtualBox's drop of support for 3D acceleration for Linux guests using Wayland? https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/18116 https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/18116 > This is a consequence of our 3D acceleration for Linux guests, which was designed for a GLX only world and interacts badly with non-GLX applications. Since more and more desktop applications are expected to use Wayland rather than X11 I have simply disabled it for guests using Wayland, thereby fixing this issue. I really want to update my old 14.04 LTS VM... however I need to find a way to keep 3D acceleration on (for front end dev, css animations and the like, plus overall much more responsive). Though, anyone know what "disabled it for guests using Wayland" actually means? Will 3D acceleration work if I switch to compiz, or do they turn it off just based on the fact that it's a "Ubuntu" VM?
anotheryou 8y ago
Wobbly windows just recently made a revival with the original author separating it from compiz: https://github.com/endlessm/libanimation https://github.com/endlessm/libanimation far more info here: https://smspillaz.wordpress.com/2018/09/10/libanimation-for-everyone/ https://smspillaz.wordpress.com/2018/09/10/libanimation-for-...

199 points by MattyRad 8y ago

coleifer 8y ago

Wobbly windows. Tiling. Emerald window decorations. Rotate cube. Endless possibilities.

kevinherron 8y ago

Or use KDE and have all of this out of the box :)

kgwxd 8y ago
Or use XFCE, get none of it, stop playing with your DE, and get back to work :)
- marktangotango 8y ago
  Yes yes yes. A friend used to call compiz the “dancing balogney” of Linux. I agree.
- pnloyd 8y ago
  XFCE is a true productivity DE. Gives you a few simple basic apps, and does a damn good job of managing windows. I so wish I could use it at work..
  - Jonnax 8y ago
    I don't get why KDE isn't considered a productive DE. The dolphin file manager has an integrated terminal that automatically changes folder to match the one you've browsed to. There's a ton of these small useful things that a light desktop like XFCE or LXDE wouldn't implement but are still useful.
    - cannonedhamster 8y ago
      KDE has too many options. That's the problem, there's too much desire to tweak just one more thing. By then you've blown a week of time. I've personally also had bad luck running KDE. I love the look however it's always run dog slow for me on any computer I've used it on when compared to other DEs. To each their own though, that's the beauty of GNU/linux.
      - simion314 8y ago
        >KDE has too many options. This a user problem, maybe some personality or mental issue that makes you waste time or get scared when you see options. How you should approach this is to use KDE, then if you wonder ,"hi would be nice if I could put the notifications on left side since my right eye is bad -> then you go and find the option and move the notifications , Installing KDE and trolling to all options is a insane thing to do, do you also install Firefox and go into about:config and set all this options as you prefer ? Or you use Ff then ask , hey would be cool if Ff won't do this annoying thing , then you search the option and hope to find it
      - vvillena 8y ago
        You're right, there's a desktop environment for everyone! And the good thing is that it isn't the wild west anymore. Almost all the DEs out there follow the common standards that make every app behave well, no matter what DE you're running. I'd recommend you to try KDE again. I run Arch Linux and KDE in my main work computer and I find the default config is awesome, there's no need to tweak anything, and it runs real fast (on the other hand I remember Kubuntu being slow). Of course, there are lots of advanced config settings, but there's no need to dig in. The default config is perfectly usable. Plus, the apps suite is where KDE really shines.
    - dTal 8y ago
      Whoa, that's awesome. I've used Plasma for a year now and I'm still doing Actions->Open Terminal Here like a dummy. Any other crazy feature tips? Plasma is great by the way. I think KDE's general busy look and poor performance over the years have really hurt its reputation - I tried it on a fast machine a few years back and it was just confusing and slow. But right now, in 2018, Plasma is easily the best desktop environment for ergonomics, features, and polish. It's really amazing what they've done with it. I encourage anyone who's written off KDE, like I did for many years, to give it another shot.
- jszymborski 8y ago
  I find MATE a similar "back-to-basics" DE that I rather enjoy.
- simion314 8y ago
  I use the Zoom effect in KDE for accessibility reasons not for playing around, compositing gives you more then fire and magic lamp effects, like it can invert colors, dim inactive windows, some animation can improve UX.

lxe 8y ago

"Little known?" Compiz was the hotness of the century about a decade ago. Fire effects on minimizing windows and the famous "cube" to switch desktops. Compiz definitely propelled Ubuntu and desktop Linux in general to where it is now. Check out this Google Trends chart to get the picture of where it was in 2007: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Compiz https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=C...

Insanity 8y ago
That brings me back :) I remember playing around with the fire and the raindrop effects. Totally useless stuff, but pretty cool!
- senectus1 8y ago
  oh wow.. I knew I had seen that word before... yeah I remember Compiz now. loved playing with snap to jelly windows... the little things that make linux fun.
- roenxi 8y ago
  It was interesting how the efforts at window decoration after Compiz never really seemed to get the useless-but-cool. I recall KDE adding some disappointing compositing effects that combined being useless with not looking very good. It was the difference between an exploration of a cool concept and someone checking a box. Compiz's best feature was it made changing virtual desktops an exciting and rewarding process. Their specific implementation of the Cube was genius.
  - CarVac 8y ago
    The best part about the cube is that it allows me to use my spatial memory to better remember what windows are open on which workspaces.
    - ehnto 8y ago
      Which is a technique some memory athletes use to remember things! They often use spatial cues like mentally placing a piece of information somewhere in a room or town. Maybe the brain prioritizes things placed in the world over ephemeral things.

marcoperaza 8y ago

I've never seen an expose knock-off that captured the magic. Even Apple managed to bungle it in recent releases. At it's peak, the feature really was perfect: perfectly smooth animation and a perfect-feeling organic layout. It didn't try to do too much and it didn't have an agenda of pushing some other feature down your throat.

rickycook 8y ago
i wouldn’t necessarily call it a knock-off. i could be wrong, but looks like spaces first came to OSX in 2006, which is the same year that compiz launched https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaces_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaces_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz
- toyg 8y ago
  I think parent refers to the original Exposé, which didn't have multiple desktops but was first released in 2003 or 2004. That already had a few cool window animations.
- SllX 8y ago
  Exposé predates Spaces by a couple of years. The two wouldn’t really be properly integrated (along with Dashboard which was practically abandonware even by this point) until Mission Control came along.
CoolGuySteve 8y ago
In Ubuntu 18.04 by default, if you hit the 'windows' key, you get a smooth old-style Expose effect that shows all the windows. The only differences are that if you type into that view, it searches Spotlight-style and off the right side there's an auto-hiding multi-desktop switcher. Both are tastefully descreet and strictly improvements imo.
sosborn 8y ago
Exposé is what made me see that 13-inch laptops are a viable option.
8y ago

joshstrange 8y ago

Um, Compiz is far from little known. When I was in high school (2005-2009) I remember installing linux for the first time on my main computer because of Compiz. The animations for switching between desktops looked very futuristic. It was cool to play with but because I built my computer for gaming Linux didn't really cut it for me. I even tried it again after watching a video about how WoW ran faster on wine on Linux than it did on XP. I distinctly remember the cube desktop switcher animation from Compiz in that video.

kbumsik 8y ago

Unfortunately, Compiz seems not to be actively maintained since 2016. It looks like the development is suddenly stopped. It is quite surprising to me considering the fame in the past. I'm kinda wondering what happened to them. [1]: https://launchpad.net/compiz https://launchpad.net/compiz

iXce 8y ago
Hasn't Ubuntu switched back to Gnome recently? Since ~2009 most of the effort was Canonical-sponsored. The C++ rewrite was quite a dealbreaker in the flow of the project (which was originally written in C). The time it took to get the rewrite up and running and the language switch had a great toll on the motivation of the contributors.
pnloyd 8y ago
Huge amounts of fragmentation in the dev community for one.. there were several major forks.
- iXce 8y ago
  that was a long time back (2007) though, when the original dev was not willing to integrate contributions
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  What else could possibly have happened? Fragmentation is the favorite sport of Linux devs.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
soneil 8y ago
My understanding (and I could be entirely wrong) was that compiz was never actually meant to be as big as it was. Compositing was desirable for perfectly mundane reasons, and compiz was a rather cheesy tech demo. I always found it amusing that while I considered compiz a novel way to test that compositing was functioning, others considered it the entire reason to switch DEs, or even OSes.

jlarocco 8y ago

To each their own, but I really don't like the Compiz style of window managers. I have better things to watch than my windows moving around.

pnloyd 8y ago
I appreciated the novelty as well, fast forward many years later and I'm doing a bunch of Googling figuring out how to disable the fancy animations on the work issued osx laptop.
- wutbrodo 8y ago
  It's funny how common this story is in this thread; my first Linux system was Ubuntu + compiz and I loved every little effect; now that I'm old(er) and boring, I'm running a stripped-down Debian on i3wm. It's pretty amazing that I've managed to run such vastly different systems over the course a decade with only incremental changes and have it fit me like a glove the entire time.
  - flukus 8y ago
    Compiz was always about cool looking bling, it was never really meant to be functional, just something you could burn unused C/GPU cycles on and were usually only in a few places. When animation became more ubiquitous (in app) it got toned down a lot and when those sorts of animations are turned off you notice the speed increase and that your brain can do the visual diff just fine. There are still plenty of visual bling you can add to i3wm without sacrificing the "instantaneous" of it though.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    During my Linux zealot years (started with Slackware 2.0 back in the day), I used to experiment and play with any window manager I could put my hands on. Nowadays I just use the default configuration of whatever OS I am on, just with some minimal configuration changes like icon size or mouse double click behavior.
    - 8y ago

Khaine 8y ago

Compiz kick started the belief that Linux "Year of the Desktop" could be a realt thing. Wobbly windows, fire and the cube were great demos to get people interested in Linux

buboard 8y ago
i never believed that hype, but i loved the wobbly gobbly effects. Given linux desktop's general unsatisfaction, they were making it quite fun. The fact that it didn't crash easily helped.

danimal88 8y ago

Sticky/Elastic windows was definitely my favorite compiz option. It was just so ridiculous and entertaining.

canada_dry 8y ago

I've been using Ubuntu/Compiz for a couple years and it has some annoying quirks e.g. child windows that pop up on the wrong monitor! (thank goodness for WIN+SHIFT+arrow keys!!) But... I have NO desire to go back to Win(10/8) horrible user/developer experience.

Townley 8y ago
How did I not know about this keyboard shortcut until now?!? Being able to move a window between different monitors is such a great feature. Thank you so much. Life will never be the same.
- ehnto 8y ago
  Hold down the Windows key to get a nifty shortcut cheat sheet.
- canada_dry 8y ago
  Merry Christmas! Now if someone can fix another bloody annoying thing i.e.: file dialog box... filename is highlighted... start typing... it directs the input somewhere else (into a search field). Such a basic and annoying UI faux pas!

upbeatlinux 8y ago

Wow, this takes me back to 2004 or 2005. I put together a compiz/beryl demo using the flame effects and cube switch in 2005 or 2006. It help converted a few friends over to run Linux on their home PCs (OpenOffice, Thunderbird, Firefox, Gaim (Pidgin) and Citrix). The flame effects were really the wow factor that sold it. I think only one person stuck around past year 3 but it really help prove to me that non-tech folk could be somewhat productive on the Linux desktop. It also legitimized a Linux loner laptop in the laptop pool of the company where I was working at the time. Not too shabby for 2006.

hiisukun 8y ago

Compiz may be great but unless I am mistaken, these features are in a default gnome-shell install. Perhaps the Ubuntu version of gnome is very different to a Fedora install? On Fedora, the 'windows key' by default shows me a mission control esque view of all my open windows, and ctrl+alt+arrow keys moves to other virtual desktops. They can be changed to directly from the right hand side of the 'mission control' overview. Are these features both off/disabled on Ubuntu?

arbol 8y ago
Yep, this is what I was thinking. Ubuntu 18.04

tscherno 8y ago

There is also bumptop from roughly the same time period https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ODskdEPnQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ODskdEPnQ

DanBC 8y ago
Nooface has a collection of weird desktops. It's no longer maintained, so here's the Wayback machine link: https://web.archive.org/web/20070226171735/http://nooface.net/3dui.shtml https://web.archive.org/web/20070226171735/http://nooface.ne...

IloveHN84 8y ago

Little?10 years ago was the main way to get nice desktop effects

edhelas 8y ago

One page 30Mb of GIF files. I know that people likes autoplayed animation but please try to use <video/> tags. It can saves a lot of bandwidth and improve greatly the experience (especially on mobile).

COil 8y ago

I used Compiz with 17.04 and it was nice, but I decided to give a shot at the native Gnome with 18.04 when I reinstalled from scratch. To be honest, it's not perfect but it does the job. So I will stick with it. And I don't want to install something that is not maintained anymore.

asianthrowaway 8y ago

So it seems that a good chunk of us got interested in computers and programming due to wobbly windows. I guess that's Compiz' main legacy, heh.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago

I'm not sure why so many people here are arguing with the "little known" part. Like many of you I owe a lot to compiz due to trying to get wobbly windows working 10+ years ago. But my mother has never heard of it, despite the fact that she'd have a vague idea of what "Linux" is if I asked her. That's the point.

MattyRad 8y ago
Yeah, I mostly titled the article due to younger engineers not being aware of how configurable Ubuntu can be (or them possibly being intimidated by Ubuntu). I didn't anticipate so many compiz greybeards would check it out, haha.

rerpha 8y ago

Having flashbacks to the cube with gears in that everyone used to love. I hate animations now, they make the desktop feel less responsive in my opinion.

filmgirlcw 8y ago

As others have said, total throwback to 2005/2006 for me — my last proper attempt to make Linux everyday OS. The early Ubuntu days were so fun! I remember ordering the free CDs for Warty Warthog (Which I still have somehere), just for fun - absolutely installing that initial release, alongside some Compiz/Beryl packages in an attempt to have fun. And then I remember upgrading to Hoary Hedgehog either early or right on its release — and downloading a brand new show that ABC was airing called “Grey’s Anatomy” — that I was angry had forced my favorite show “Boston Legal” into early hiatus. I have distinct memories of watching the pilot in one of the rotating cubes — but Wikipedia indicates Compiz’s initial release was later so I may have used a pre-release or another WM effect thing. Anyway. It’s nearly 14 years later. Grey’s Anatomy is one of the longest-running TV dramas of all time. It’s creator signed a huge deal with Netflix after basically turnjjg Thursday nights into the biggest night on TV for ABC, and apparently, wobbly Windows are still a thing. The Tumblr Pop Culture Died in 2009 is correct. Also, #getoffmylawn because I’m now in my 30s and old!

colemickens 8y ago
This comment was fun to read. I'm a couple years younger, but that Boston Legal part hit like a truck. Maybe it was the suggestion, but I can't knock the mental image of wasting hours futzing with compiz/Beryl/fuzion with Denny Crane in the background. Thanks for the nostalgia trip and smile!

digitalzombie 8y ago

I remember using Sabayon Linux way in the early days it came with or probably I tweaked it with Compiz and Beryl. The ATI drivers were something. So bleeding edge distro that it was crashing randomly. I had a 6 sides cube with each side representing a different desktop screen and wall paper. Fun times.

yason 8y ago

I still remember when Gnome 2 reached its peak with Ubuntu in the early 2000's. It was pretty much the complete, reliable, configurable, and robust desktop that Linux ever needed. Anything since that has been a downhill, with new features being presented at the expense of other features and no-frills-but-functional design. I sometimes feel for Windows users whose basic desktop proposition has remained largely unchanged for quite a many years, disregarding some cosmetic updates. The endless need to change things eventually caused Gnome 2 to gradually become unavailable. It would've needed maintenance, updates to support new library versions, and nobody was interested. There's MATE but each time I've checked is a non-polished mess based on Gnome 2 codebase. The original Gnome 2 was lean and tidy on the surface with lots of power underneath, possibly thanks to curation by Ubuntu. The Gnome Classic in Ubuntu is okay-ish but it has a lot of leaky abstractions as well, and you feel it's sort of out of place. It takes some tweaking to change the window manager as the newer window managers tend not to be configurable enough so that I can't set my keyboard bindings to what I've had for decades. The only thing that does remain the same is the shell which I gladly accept. Having grow up using an Amiga, however, it still feels weird not to have a fully-integrated, native desktop GUI that very much defines the feel of the operating system itself. Gnome 2 had that chance. Other Linux environments before and after Gnome 2 are mostly just a shell to run terminals, the editor and the browser.

ArrayList 8y ago

Just reading the string "Compiz" gave me absolute nostalgia-whiplash.

BafS 8y ago

Lot of nostalgia. For those who want to try on mac you can have something similar with Deskovery

AltruisticGap 8y ago

Anyone know if this could solve VirtualBox's drop of support for 3D acceleration for Linux guests using Wayland? https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/18116 https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/18116 > This is a consequence of our 3D acceleration for Linux guests, which was designed for a GLX only world and interacts badly with non-GLX applications. Since more and more desktop applications are expected to use Wayland rather than X11 I have simply disabled it for guests using Wayland, thereby fixing this issue. I really want to update my old 14.04 LTS VM... however I need to find a way to keep 3D acceleration on (for front end dev, css animations and the like, plus overall much more responsive). Though, anyone know what "disabled it for guests using Wayland" actually means? Will 3D acceleration work if I switch to compiz, or do they turn it off just based on the fact that it's a "Ubuntu" VM?

anotheryou 8y ago

Wobbly windows just recently made a revival with the original author separating it from compiz: https://github.com/endlessm/libanimation https://github.com/endlessm/libanimation far more info here: https://smspillaz.wordpress.com/2018/09/10/libanimation-for-everyone/ https://smspillaz.wordpress.com/2018/09/10/libanimation-for-...