compiz won't run as the configured window manager

[hanoii]

Hi!

After been a kde debian testing user for quite a while, and although I have to say it works quite good on my 4-year-old notebook (I got it quite overpowered then) it was lacking from some responsiveness. I then recently installed lxde on my samsung n220 netbook and I was really really impressed. It worked almost as my laptop, and bear in mind it's a netbook, and it works amazingly faster than the W7 starter that comes with the netbook, so for that, kudos for both linux and KDE! And I am now in the process of switching definitely to LXDE on my desktop pc as well.

So far so good. Today I went out and try compiz on my lxde and I have to say it almost worked out of the box when I run compiz --replace from the commandline. I haven't played that much yet and so far I switched back to openbox but I want to know what's the status of having compiz and lxde working together. One thing I was unable to do is to run compiz right from the beginning. I have configured it on the session as well as check the config file was properly written but openbox get run all the time. I even tried other WM but I can't that setting to work, any help I can get with that?

I am running, as I said, debian testing so I guess it's pretty much the latest versions.

And also, overall, what's the status of compiz&lxde. I searched the forums and there seems to be some work into making them work together.

Thanks and greetings from a happy user from Argentina.
a.=

[Marty Jack]

Check /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/desktop.conf and ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/desktop.conf
the innermost one that is present should have

[Session]
window_manager=compiz ccp

It's as supported as any window manager. I am reasonably sure some distros ship with it as the default. I was running Compiz up until about two weeks ago when I switched back to Openbox.

[hanoii]

Thanks, that actually worked. Why is it that the Desktop session setting edit ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/config instead if it won't be readed? Is that a bug? known bug?

The first thing I noticed is that I cannot make the taskbar to show only windows on the desktop, it always shows ALL the windows openend, have you worked that out somehow?

And also, out of curiosity, why did you switch back to openbox?

Thanks a lot again!
a.=

[Marty Jack]

The way lxsession works is, if the file is present in ~/.config, it reads that, and if not found, it reads /etc/xdg. All of the settings come from the first found source. I don't see that being wrong or being changed, but there has been some discussion on the mailing list of it.

One of the limitations in Compiz support is that lxpanel doesn't have any logic to handle the Wall desktops, so it appears to lxpanel that all of the desktops are on the currently visible desktop, the pager doesn't work properly, and the desktop number plugin doesn't work properly. This needs a tremendous level of rework to the structures to get working. I have this running privately but there is no schedule for when it would appear in a released product. Compiz uses something that EWMH calls "large desktops", and Openbox uses the older style.

I run Linux From Scratch, so I am responsible for my own system integration. I switched back to Openbox because when I upgraded GTK to 2.22.0, I started having major trouble with popup windows displaying intermittently. I found that this behavior was only present under Compiz 0.8.6 and not under Openbox. So I switched back to Openbox so I could get work done. I try not to run development code when possible and since Compiz 0.9.1 is unstable and also they have completely changed their build procedures, it would have taken me a lot of time to sort out.

I am going to see if I can help out on Wayland and get compositing back that way. Also, I happen to think that Compiz and "lightweight desktop" are pulling in opposite directions.

[hanoii]

Let just get quickly back to you in what looks a bit wrong.

What you said about the config files is right, but the thing is that my lxde is saving the window manager entry that I enter using the desktop session options from the preference panel on a file in ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/config and that file seems to ignored completely. Now, if I manually create a desktop.conf file in that directory, it is properly read and the window manager I configure there is loaded properly. So what seems to be a bug or error is that the preference panel is storing the setting on a config file instead of in a desktop.conf file.

a.=

[Marty Jack]

I have no idea what you mean by

"desktop session options from the preference panel"

If you mean lxsession-edit, the 0.2.0 release appears to write the file with the correct name. There was at one point a change in the configuration file name from "config" to "desktop.conf".
As with most problems, you need to go back to your distro and resolve this.

[hanoii]

yes, sorry, I meant that, lxsession-edit.

I am using 0.4.4-3 debian testing package.. I would assume this is an error on lxde rather than on the distro, but that's OK.. It's not the latest version either, I checked on the site and there's a 0.4.5 there, so I guess I should check that to make this a proper bug report. Just thought it worths mentioning here. At least that version appears to be saving the details into the "config" file, not "desktop.conf".