I've always been confused with compiz in general under Slackware that I never use it. From my understanding of compiz and the later versions of Slackware is compiz is now included. Now that I'm using Slackware 13.37 I'd like to finally throw compiz into the mix, but have no idea where to begin. Anyone care to point to a guide or start one?

The compiz 0.8 branch works very nicely in 13.37, There is also a development branch named the 0.9 branch they will eventually become stable but right now I think its advisable to stick with the 0.8 branch. I have submitted slackbuilds to SBo and once there approved you can just follow the README and you should be good to go. If you cant wait I have them posted here
http://webpages.charter.net/daedra1/compiz/. Just follow the README for install order and then read the post install README. Then you can launch fusion-icon and it will start compiz, you can also changed compiz to KDE's default window manager in system settings.

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Thanks, Daedra, I've been thinking of finally giving it a whirl myself!

Thanks Daedra! It's all coming together now! Just curious as to why compiz is included with Slackware, yet all these extras are not... would make things a whole lot simplier!

Is there a way to show a number when I switch cube faces (viewports)?

Also, is RingSwitcher working for you guys? The default <Super>-TAB doesn't seem to do anything, but changing it to ALT-TAB does...

Lastly, should I be letting KDE handle window transparency or compiz? Not sure where to even set it in compiz though...

1) I am not sure about that, I would ask over at #compiz on IRC, you would find your answer there.

2) Just set it manually through ccsm.

3) You can control your transparency through compiz, what exactly are you trying to change?

As for <Super>-TAB not working, I suppose I'll set it to replace the old Alt-Tab... was just wondering why the default wasn't working for me and if it was the same for anyone else.

Well currently I have a specific window setting in KDE that turns everything to 84% opaque and then separate window settings for apps that I don't want to be transparent. Was wondering if it's best to leave it the way it is or let compiz replace what KDE is doing for me currently.

Stumbled upon a problem getting wallpapers to show up for me with compiz. I currently have two desktops in KDE and with compiz so I have a total of 8 with two in each cube face. Right now all my cube faces are showing the wallpaper set in KDE not matter what I have set in the Wallpapers section in ccsm. I had it working somewhat where if I had 2 listed wallpapers there it would display one on face #1 and the second on #2, but desktop #1 would show the KDE wallpaper and desktop #2 would show what was listed in ccsm. Messing around with .kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc and adding wallpapercolor=0,0,0,0 and using the trans.png file you provided a while back somehow messed things up. Any clues?

If it is working ok then just leave it, compiz can do alpha blurring which is a nice feature.

did you have a post about how to get different wallpapers on each side of the cube? I thought I saw that?

I did... that was right before I started messing around with the Wallpapers section in ccsm. If I'm not mistaken, all one has to do is choose a few wallpapers in that section and compiz will assign them accordingly to each cube face. However now, as mentioned in my previous post, all it shows is the KDE wallpaper for all cube faces and desktops. Not sure what's wrong here...

It is doable, but you have to recompile your kdebase-workspace package. Then you just have to edit one file to disable kde wallpaper. Once that is done you can set your wallpapers under Ccsm.

If you are interested just let me know and I will give more detailed instructions and a slackbuild.

I'm interested! However to be clear, am I correct in saying that KDE's wallpaper is covering compiz's?

Greetz
There is little doubt that all the various teams (4?) that have evolved into Compiz deserve a lot of credit for getting graphic effects to the Linux desktop. However IMHO KWin is substantially superior in two major ways:

1) It is more solid and stable, using less resources than Compiz. It is so stable that Kwin is reported to be more solid with Gnome than Compiz even though it should be obvious the KDE team couldn't care less about that. It just worked out that way. Good is good.

2) It is more useful since Compiz has a lot of effects that are nice for a minute or for showing off to a friend but just how long are you going to leave ripple, snow or fire on? KWin has more useful tools such as transparency levels and thresholds. Personally I despise the "snap" feature as I'd rather do it manually but some people just love it and can't do without it and I have read many posts that claim that KWin's snap is considerably superior to Win 7's.

I use KWin and love it so I can attest to the basics. The rest you might want to find out for yourself but it really is a strong alternative especially if you're using the Slackware default DE, KDE. I'm even trying to use it with Enlightenment 17 but am waiting to get the most recent full build.

Yes, KDE's wallpaper gets priority and is basically just covering compiz's wallpaper. If you want to do this then do it in this order.

1) Open up gimp and then select File>New. Set your template as 1x1 pixel. Once open zoom in close so the pixel is visible, Select your magic want tool and click on the middle of the square. This should highlight the entire cube, then go to layer>transparency>add alpha channel, once seleced then hit delete. This should of deleted the square and left you with a checkered box indicating success. Save somewhere on your drive as a .png.

2) You need to recompile your kdebase-workspace to patch a line of code that allows the plasma desktop to be transparent, it used to be enabled by default, but it was disabled a few releases ago. Download my slackbuild from here http://www.mostlyslack.com/slackstuf...rkspace.tar.gz run the ./source.sh to grab the source for you then launch the slackbuild. Once the package is finished you can run upgradepkg to replace the stock workspace package. At this point log out of X and re-log in.

3) Open up your favorite text editor, preferable a text based one like nano, or vim. If you need a graphical one then that is fine. Open the file ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc and change/add the follow lines to match the red.

[Containments][1]
activity=unnamed
activityId=d5f2853c-0947-4773-ac6f-1b461839cf2d
desktop=-1
formfactor=0
geometry=0,0,1920,1200
immutability=1
lastDesktop=-1
lastScreen=0
location=0
plugin=desktop
screen=0
wallpapercolor=0,0,0,0
wallpaperplugin=image
wallpaperpluginmode=SingleImage
zvalue=0

[Containments][1][Wallpaper][image]
slideTimer=10
slidepaths=/usr/share/wallpapers/
userswallpapers=
wallpaper=/<pathtofile>/file.png
wallpapercolor=0,0,0,0
wallpaperposition=0

Save the file and then kill and relaunch plasma like this
killall plasma-desktop && plasma-desktop

If you did everything right then should now be able to set your wallpaper in Ccsm.

Thanks Daedra! I had stumbled upon a post in the past from you helping me with transparency in conky that required a recompile of kdebase-workspace, which I guess was referencing an older version of KDE. Seems like the patch only makes the change of turning on transparency so I attempted to bring that patch over to KDE 4.5.5. Due to a lack of sleep I couldn't find the tarball from the 13.37 sources so I grabbed the .bz2 tarball of the net and used that to run against the patch. Not sure what exactly went wrong, but it failed to build after a successful patch and compile. Anyway, after realizing where the 13.37 .xz tarball was I copied that over and copied over the relevant changes from your new build script to 13.37's script and BAM! it built successfully. I have not updated the package yet, as I ran out of time this morning, but it'll be the first thing I do when I get home.

One thing I did realize with compiz and conky this morning was that when I used the "Show Desktop" widget from KDE, it actually minimized conky... before running compiz, conky would stay on the screen. Anyway to fix that?

Something that kind of irks me is the default of <Super>-TAB in ShiftSwitcher and RingSwitcher not working. I have backed up my compiz settings and reset compiz to defaults where everything is disabled and then tried to enable just ShiftSwitcher with the default <Super>-TAB, but that key combination just doesn't want to work. Is it possible for you to verify this on your end is the same as well?

I am not sure I fully understand, are you saying conky disappears on you?

I can confirm this, it doesn't work like it used to, I haven't investigated it much, I have to set my shiftswitcher plugin to initiate with ALT>TAB and scroll with SUPER>TAB its kind of annoying but it works for now.

Well I wouldn't say it disappears, but it minimizes like an app. With KDE's "Show Desktop" widget, all my apps including conky minimize off the screen and then reappear when I press it again, as if it was an application. Just noticed something to add to this note... if I click on conky it actually kills conky!

Just curious, do you have KDE's pager/virtual desktops running with compiz? Find it neat to have virtual desktops that contain viewports, but it doesn't seem to behave properly. In the beginning it'll work nicely, but after some time the KDE "start" button stops responding, as well as windows getting placed in other viewports without me putting them there.