There's nothing closer in Windows.
I'd like to take note of a just a few things that works on my desktop.
Some features doesn't seem to work or I may have an issue with my keyboard.
Anyway, my intention is to cover a very few basics that once worked for me.
If compiz is installed one sees at least:
$ pkg info -r compiz
Name: desktop/compiz
Summary: OpenGL compositing window manager
Category: Desktop (GNOME)/Window Managers
State: Installed
Publisher: solaris
Version: 0.8.4
Build Release: 5.11
Branch: 0.175.0.0.0.0.0
Packaging Date: September 27, 2011 08:26:54 AM
Size: 5.67 MB
FMRI: pkg://...
$ pkg info -r compiz-fusion-extra
Name: desktop/compiz/plugin/compiz-fusion-extra
Summary: extra effects plugins for compiz
Category: Applications/Plug-ins and Run-times
State: Installed
Publisher: solaris
Version: 0.8.4
Build Release: 5.11
Branch: 0.175.0.0.0.0.0
Packaging Date: September 27, 2011 08:25:35 AM
Size: 6.83 MB
FMRI: pkg://...
However, a pkg search compiz may reveal more packages.
At this time I don't know or have time to deal with IPS dependencies.
In case things get out of control, to revert to defaults:
- Go to System | Preferences | CompizConfig Settings Manager
- Go to Preferences and click the Reset to defaults button.
But better than reverting to defaults is to use Compiz profiles.
Hence, before changing any settings, create a new Compiz profile.
This way you'll be sure to have an easy fall-back in case of trouble.
Go to CompizConfig Settings Manager | Preferences | Profile & Backend.
Click on the + button and create a new Compiz profile:
Now it's much safer to proceed trying out several options!
But if you really mess it up at some point restart from the scratch.
Go to System | Preferences | Appearance | Visual Effects and choose None.
Wait a while, then choose Extra to reenable Compiz.
Clean up previous Compiz profiles and try again.
I think that the Extra settings are quite reasonable.
I only choose to add Gnome Compatibility for the Alt + F2 functionality.
Here's what one gets:
(with some keyboard shortcuts):
- DESKTOP
Expo [ Win+e or Ctrl+MB ] - WINDOW MANAGEMENT
Maximumize [ Win+m/h/v ] Shift Switcher [ Alt+Tab or Win+LB ] Resize Window [ Alt+MB or Alt+F8] Shelf [ Win+l/p/o or Win+Alt+L/RB]
NOTE
For quite a long time, more than a couple of years(!), very few times during a gnome-session, but always after initiating a logout or shutdown I saw the annoying message below which I offered no much clues on how to address the warning, except by accepting its hint of not displaying it anymore (which isn't a good practice in case of error or warning messages):
One these days I finally did some progress in coming to a solution, all by myself, which I gladly share with you as no one deserves this hurdles! 😎 The secret lies on running /usr/lib/compiz/compiz-configure. This configuration tool will reveal and, if possible, fix the issue:
Finally something meaningful! The warning message could have told me about this configuration tool long before! Now, with all making sense, I clicked on the modify configuration button to let the tool fix things for me:
I confess that the message above was somewhat puzzling. The first sentence told me the tool had succeed, yet the last sentence told me there were no configuration file (xorg.conf in /etc/X11). I can confirm that the configuration file (at least as I understand it) was always there. I think the confusion was because I ran the tool as a regular user instead of root with the DISPLAY and xauth adjusted and as such it couldn't access the configuration file as needed (read/write). Anyway the tool proposed the following changes:
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "RenderAccel" "True"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "True"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "nvidia-auto-select"
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection
I substituted the proposed xorg.conf in /etc/X11 and restarted X so that the tool reported everything was now Ok, but I still see the annoying warning message! (now I'm wondering if at logout or shutdown the warning could be considered harmless as the gnome-session is the process of being dropped down — but I definitely shall not see the message anymore during the sessions — and I haven't, which is a good indication). At least I know I'm closer to the perfect solution.
But I shouldn't have replaced my previously working xorg.conf. I should have just added what compiz-configration told me to be missing. Hence, I manually reintegraded a few settings that became absent in the newly proposed xorg.conf. As I know this X configuration file is sensible and may be a source of many headaches, I fully transcribe mine with the Compiz fix:
# nvidia-xconfig: X config file ... by nvidia-xconfigNOTE
# nvidia-xconfig: version 346.35 ...
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
Screen 0 "Screen0"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
Option "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection
Section "Files"
FontPath "catalogue:/etc/X11/fontpath.d"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "keyboard"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
# HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Samsung"
ModelName "SyncMaster 225MS"
HorizSync 30.0 - 80.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce GT 610"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "Stereo" "0"
Option "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
Option "SLI" "Off"
Option "MultiGPU" "Off"
Option "BaseMosaic" "off"
Option "RenderAccel" "True"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "True"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "nvidia-auto-select"
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection
On my old TFT-LCD Samsung SyncMaster 225MS the best result (native resolution) comes only from the DVI connection (1680x1050), not the HDMI (1920x1080). That cause me some headaches until I realize that!
$ xrandrNOTE
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1680 x 1050, ...
DVI-I-0 disconnected primary (...)
VGA-0 disconnected (...)
DVI-I-1 connected 1680x1050+0+0
(normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 477mm x 300mm
1680x1050 59.9*+
1280x1024 75.0 60.0
1280x960 60.0
1152x864 75.0
1024x768 75.0 70.1 60.0
800x600 75.0 72.2 60.3 56.2
640x480 75.0 72.8 59.9
HDMI-0 disconnected (...)
Just note that when multiple monitors are involved, there may be (multiple 😉) additional issues, for instance, with "metamodes" conflicting with GNOME where there are rotations.
