I recently installed ubuntu 10.10 on my aspire 3000 and everything seemed to work just fine... until i tried to activate desktop effects. tu put it simple, it just don't work.
i checked and doubled-checked the lsmod | head to make sure that my drivers (sisfb / sis_drv.so) were installed and loaded. they were.
i then made sure that my pc was opengl-supporting (Glxinfo | grep "direct rendering"
the answer was positive.
with that in mind, i tried many different ways to run compiz(compiz --replace, apparence-desktop effect, run app-compiz) but neither if these gave any results.
after days of google search i yet have to find an answer.

if you could please help me, it would be deeply appreciated.
thanks

Have you tried using the 'Visual Effects' tab in Appearance Preferences? Right click your desktop and select Change Desktop Background to bring it up.