Enabling cool desktop effects in Ubuntu [Hack Your Day]
Ubuntu 7.10 comes with the awesome Compiz meaning desktop on a cube, window animations and so on, but you may be at a loss since it doesn’t work. I actually managed to get it to work quite simply, despite the fact that many forums propose long terminal sessions and so on.
From a fresh Ubuntu install it is very important to update. Simply going to the update manager in system - administration will not work, you will still see that your system is up to date since you need to expand the library of where the manager looks. Go System - Administration - Software sources. Once there on Ubuntu software mark all checkboxes, except source code. Switch to the third party software tab and mark both checkboxes, then switch to the updates tab and mark the first three checkboxes. If you go to update manager now you will see a lot of updates and install them.
The restricted driver for my video card was immediately usable. When I wanted to enable desktop effects I got the message “The Composite extension is not available”. This is apparently due to the fact that xgl is not installed. Head on over to the Synaptic Package Manager and search for xgl. You should see a small list and mark xserver-xgl for installation.
Once installed, you should be able to change your settings in System - Preferences - Appearance under the visual effects tab to Extra. To change the settings using a user friendly GUI, you will need to get the settings manager. The name of the application is “compizconfig-settings-manager”, just download it with the package manager.
When done, you should be able to access the settings via System - Advanced desktop effects. By the way, my keyboard layout reverted to default English after I installed xgl for some reason, so it might well do the same for you, just go to System - Preferences - Keyboard to fix the problem.
Original post here: Daniel
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