I'm now running full Compiz Fusion under the eee distribution of Xubuntu. It works great, everything is smooth with very little to no lag. I do have 1GB of RAM, though, and running it at 512MB with no swap would probably be a little taxing if not impossible. With 1GB DDR2 sticks at 30 bucks or less, however, you really should upgrade to 1GB anyway (I would have gone to 2GB, but 2GB sticks are still new tech and thus cost around $190). Anyway, here's my tips. Everything is done from the CompizConfig settings manager, which you can get to via Settings/Advanced Desktop Effects Settings in the XFCE menu, or by running "ccsm" from a terminal. You should run ccsm and get the settings right before you first start Compiz.

1. Install according to alchemist's post in this thread: http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=5664. There are lots of guides around telling you to add repositories, etc. - everything you need is already in the ubuntu repositories.

2. Optimize for the small screen - First, under General/Focus and Raise Behaviour, turn off Click To Focus, Auto Raise, and Raise On Click. This prevents a very annoying behavior where windows that are larger than the screen will randomly jump around when you click anywhere within them. Next, under Window Settings/Move Window, turn off Constrain Y. This will enable you to move a window (using Alt+Button1) above the top of the screen.

3. Plugins - I disabled Effects/Animations and Effects/Minimize Effect entirely, as they are just too slow on the eee. These are just eye candy anyway. Everything else I'm running works great. Here's all the plugins I have turned on:

Enhanced Zoom Desktop, Negative, Desktop Cube, Expo, Rotate Cube, Viewport Switcher, Cube Reflection, Window Decoration, Wobbly Windows, and everything that was selected by default in Image Loading, Utility and Window Management. I also followed some suggestions in this article: http://forlong.blogage.de/article/2007/ … piz-Fusion

4. How to get the famous cube to work - Believe it or not, the cube works great on the eee. I figured it would be slow, but not at all. To get it to work properly, first go to General Options/Desktop Size and set Horizontal Virtual Size to 4, Vertical Virtual Size to 1, and Number of Desktops to 4. Now you should see the desktop flip when you hit Ctrl/Alt/Left or Right, but you can't see the actual cube and the Initiate action (Ctrl/Alt/hold Button1) doesn't work. To get that to work, go to Desktop/Rotate Cube/General and set Zoom to a non-zero number (I set it to 1). Now you should be able to hit Ctrl/Alt/hold button 1 and see the cube, and move the mouse around to rotate it. Useless, but really cool.

5. Testing it out and setting it to autostart - Start it up by running "compiz --replace" from a terminal or Alt-F2. If everything is working to your satisfaction, go to Settings/Autostarted Applications in the XFCE menu, and add an item that starts "compiz --replace". Restart X and Compiz should start automatically. It only adds a second or 2 to startup time, you'll barely notice it.

Hope this helps someone, I had to do a lot of searching to get all this to work, especially the cube. Compiz Fusion is really awesome - I've been a Linux user since around 1996, but I haven't used it as a primary desktop platform in several years. It's come a LONG way. Compiz Fusion isn't QUITE as good as Quartz Extreme/CoreImage on Mac OSX, but it's very close, and that's high praise.

Last edited by nickca (2007-12-21 1:18:26 am)