Compositing

If you have set up your graphics card properly, you should have direct rendering enabled. To determine this we'll run the glxinfo command which is part of the mesa-progs package.

$ glxinfo | grep direct
direct rendering: Yes

Compiz-fusion, or just compiz, is the most popular compositing tool. Since it is cutting-edge, its packages are typically masked by the gentoo devs. Before we emerge it, we should unmask some packages appropriately.

$ sudo nano -w /etc/portage/package.keywords

Ensure the file has the following contents. Note: use ~x86 in place of ~amd64 for 32-bit systems.

x11-apps/fusion-icon ~amd64
dev-python/compizconfig-python ~amd64
x11-wm/compiz ~amd64
x11-wm/compiz-fusion ~amd64
x11-libs/libcompizconfig ~amd64
x11-wm/emerald ~amd64
x11-themes/emerald-themes ~amd64
dev-libs/protobuf ~amd64
x11-apps/ccsm ~amd64
x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-main ~amd64
x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-extra ~amd64
x11-libs/compiz-bcop ~amd64

Since we'll be using emerald as our window decorator, we'll also need to make sure the emerald USE flag is set for the compiz-fusion package.

$ sudo nano -w /etc/portage/package.use

Ensure the file has the following contents.

x11-wm/compiz-fusion emerald

Emerge the packages.

$ sudo emerge -av fusion-icon emerald compiz-fusion

Once the emerge has completed, you'll want to set up your basic settings so when you run compiz for the first time you'll have a usable configuration. First, select Settings -> Emerald Theme Manager from your menu and select the theme you want. Next, select Settings -> CompizConfig Settings Manager from your menu. I recommend the following options:

• Desktop
  • Desktop Cube
  • Rotate Cube
  • Viewport Switcher
• Effects
  • 3D Windows
  • Cube Reflection and Deformation
  • Minimize Effect
  • Window Decoration
  • Wobbly Windows
• Extras
  • Window Previews
• Utility
  • Mouse position polling
  • Regex Matching
• Window Management
  • Application Switcher
  • Move Window
  • Place Windows
  • Resize Window

Of course, you are welcome to add or remove any of the options here; these will simply provide you with a working configuration. Once you have enabled the options, click Close to exit CCSM.

You can now launch compiz by clicking on fusion-icon. It should replace your existing window manager with compiz using emerald as the window decorator. Compiz can be difficult to get working properly, especially in the cases of dual display configurations and older video hardware. I'll try to add a troubleshooting section later.