Solved-Compiz Effects for Lubuntu 10.04 LTS 2

Posted by JD 09/15/2011 at 09:00

I was reading an article on Lifehacker about adding fancy effects to a Linux desktop. Of course, they showed how to do it with 11.04 Ubuntu – which is unstable on my systems. Should I be without the wobbly windows? No! You shouldn’t do without either.

Let’s get to the point already. Lubuntu or Ubuntu server with LXDE doesn’t include the compiz libraries. We need to load them.

$ sudo apt-get install compiz ccsm metacity

That will install the 10 dependencies or so. If you are shown a huge list of dependencies and you are running LXDE, you may want to reconsider. You chose LXDE to avoid bloat after all.

$ compiz --reload

Now you just need to enable some of the effects. They weren’t enabled by default on my system. Run

$ ccsm

to pull up the Compiz Configuration Manager.
I like the raindrops, wobbly windows and cube effects. Wobbly windows is an easy way to determine if Compiz is loaded or not.

Be certain to test this for a day or more before you try to make it permanent. If you do not and force it permanent as described below, be prepared to have ZERO GUI on the system. I had to remote in from a different machine, edit the file and restart the system.

How you make it permantent is a little different for each desktop environment. On stock LXDE, edit ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/desktop.conf and replace the 

window_manager=compiz ccp

; window_manager=openbox-lxde

Restart the Xsession – it may be easier to logout and log back in for some. No reboot needed.

This even worked under VirtualBox, which shocked me. Just remember to enable 3D acceleration for the VM.

Doing this changed the window manager, so my keyboard shortcuts to launch my favorite programs was gone. Compiz has a solution for that in the configuration manager. Just find the keybinding tab and go to town. It just took a few minutes to get my green text on black background xterm back.

  1. Ron 09/30/2011 at 19:27

    Wobbly windows……can you get my email working?…baker

    Actually good post. I was wondering how to do this under lxde.. (my laptop desktop)

  2. JD 09/30/2011 at 19:27

    Baker,

    This sounds like work – what’s the compensation schedule look like?