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.