I am running slackware 12 on an Ibm T-42p Thinkpad, and it has an ATI FireGL Mobility T2 video card. Changing it is just wishful thinking and I would like to get compiz-fusion fully working so any help would be incredibly useful.
Here's the trouble, I have the compiz-fusion icon in the toolbar and can use the settings manager, but when i do xconf;cubez;startx
or just switch to it via the menu,to start it up, the edges of my windows effectively dissapear, and the buttons are gone.(the ones to resize, close etc.)
I have looked at the forums here and at compiz, and found alot of ati problems, but not alot of solutions related to slackware, or this card. I have evn found this problem, but my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file says everything that the solutions provided say to put into it.

Of course google has provided some interesting finds...
One person said he got it to work with my exact configuration of hardware, but he is running suse10.3 To bad for me I'm new so don't know what the difference is between the two. His "fix" was that this card used an older driver, and ati cards each have their quirks as to which driver works for them in compiz-fusion.
I tried to install the driver, but I'm not sure what the commands are to make it the driver of choice( or just force it to be)so at this point I'm in a holding pattern and have used removepkg on all the different versions I tried, thinking that might be part of it.
Another page/person was saying to check /etc/fstab to make sure that POSIX shared memory was enabled to increase the f/ps of fglrx_gears, So i looked and it wasn't enabled, curious to know if i enabled it with this command:
1. Add the following line to /etc/fstab (if it isn’t there already): tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
2. Mount shared memory as follows: mount /dev/shm
3. Issue the following command to check that it mounted properly: mount | grep shm

If the mount was successful, then the following output (or similar) should appear:
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)

At this point, POSIX Shared Memory is enabled. Your 3D applications should run properly and the error message above should no longer occur.
If the output from this command is blank, then the mount failed.

If that would damage anything, because that is definately above my paygrade at this point( still learning
I'm willing to try this, but want to know the dangers here.

What I am hoping for is some info of how to make the driver package for my card (allegedly) be the one the system chooses by default (word for word would be nice) so I can create my own little how-to of an older ATI card, providing it works out.
Compiz-fusion is ALMOST working, but a driver issue is the closest diagnosis i can figure at this point. It fires up, but no effects, no borders or buttons on the windows, and no Cubey goodness
I know I'm really close, but I need the last little push in the right direction( with directions for slackware preferably)

Thanks for any advice
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Linus Torvalds is not out to destroy Micro$oft.
that will just be a completely unintentional side effect.

As I recall, I had a similar problem, where all the buttons and borders disappeared. It had something to do with the window decorations in compiz. I finally got it to work by installing the emerald package, or the gtk-window-decorator package. Then I had to start compiz by telling it which decorator to use. I realize I don't use slackware, but debian, but the idea is the same.

Sorry I don't remember much. I ended up not liking compiz very well. I just wanted a simple desktop.

Sorry I'm not much help.

I do appreciate any thoughts, so thank you for the suggestion. I have heard of the switch to emerald helping fix the issue, but when I did that, it did the same thing, so I'm pretty sure its the driver causing the mess.
I have the right driver package created, but I can't help but think that it needs a slackbuild package to be installed correctly. I'll be looking for it tonight, but the question still remains, how in the heck do I change the driver its using now, to the one I create? I have tried alot of methods with google on this, but I think I'm going to have to just study a little harder on the command line tutorials to get it right for slackware.
Google is a great tool, but sifting through the non-pertinent stuff is really tiresome at times, that's what has taken me so long to figure this out. As usual, its hiding right in front of me, banner, neon sign and all, but I'm not experienced enough yet to see it.
When I find this (hopefully sooner rather than later) I'm going to make a nice post with the info. Probably in this thread so it goes right here in a search (hopefully )
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A fun UNIX joke
% man: why did you get a divorce?
man: : Too many arguments.

Well, I'm almost there. At the login prompt, after my login and password, I put in xconf;cubez;startx and it starts to load the desktop.... and then it(the screen) turns completely white, I can see the mouse, and woo hoo! I can spin ze cube!! Except for the no desktop part I'm pretty happy with it. I can press control+alt+backspace to stop X
I have to go over the steps to really get what I did down on paper, but Its close enough to keep trying.
Things I've learned:
1. POSIX shared memory is a good thing, and you have to do it for this to go right in slackware, or so says the slackbuild repository.

2. Building their drivers might have been a mistake, but did it anyways, just wish I could figure out how to make my own slackware packages that get as far as installpkg.

3. Always when using a command like nano /etc/rc.d/rc.modules
save a copy as the name plus add in .orig at the end. Just change the file with one character and then change it right back and hit control+X
to save it and when it asks for what file, add the .orig to the end. THEN edit the real file for use

Keep an eye out for the README files and use them, I will be putting this together and hopefully it will help someone else.
Now, to google about a white spinning compiz cube, and no window borders when compiz is chosen from the icon menu as the window manager,
startx works, but not with cubez put in front of it, and I wonder if the 2 have anything to do with each other......