An update. I installed Nvidia driver 285.05.09 and allowed it to create and backup /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

Things are normal without compiz running.

I can now launch fusion-icon. If I switch to compiz as the WM, the window decorations disappear, I do not get a rotating cube, even though it is enabled in CCSM. I have Desktop cube and Rotate cube enabled. For the record, under window management, I have the following enabled; Resize, Move, Put, Place and Shift Switcher enabled.

I have wobbly windows enabled, if I go Alt + button 1 and move the window, it wobbles, so some things are working.

Ran this command and the results are the same, no rotating cube, no decorations. I did see this error when issuing the this command.
Not sure what this means.

I tried one more thing. I commented out Load "dbe" and "glx", and added Load "v4l". This is what gets loaded in Magia 1 and everthing works. Not so in Slack. The results with v4l are the same, as with dbe and glx loaded. So, switching back to DBE + GLX.

Any more thoughts on what to try next?

Ok did you enable Window Decorations under CCSM? After you start compiz you said that you have no window decorations, this happens to me when ever I first start compiz too. All you should have to do is right click in your fusion-icon and change your window decorations to emerald, this should restart emerald and it should now be working, of course you have to enable window decorations under ccsm.

When you press ctrl-alt-down does you cube flatten out?

I have a check in the box for Window Decoration, and in the command line I have 'emerald --replace' ( without the quote marks).

No flattening out. Tried, as well, Ctrl + Alt + right arrow ( and left arrow ) no cube spinning.

My guess, is there is something wrong with emerald, however I have no idea what is wrong, since I installed it using sbopkg along with all the other packages.

One thing I don't fully understand, is how to select a theme for emerald to use. I looked at Emerald theme manager, but I don't see a way to tell emerald to use a specific theme.

First thing it doesn't matter about the emerald --replace in the command line. After you launch compiz, you need to open a terminal and launch emerald using emerald --replace & from there. Try that and report back. also did you check your key binding under the rotate cube plugin, if Ctrl + Alt + right arrow ( and left arrow ) are not set they will not work. If you installed the emerald themes package all you should have to do to change themes is just select them under emerald theme manager and they should automatically change for you, but we have to get emerald running first. Like I said earlier its common for emerald not to work the first time you launch compiz, this happens to me constantly, however all I have to do is launch it from the command line once and that fixes the problem and then after that it automatically launches.

O.K. from the command line, launching emerald, this is what I get...

Did this a a regular user.

Try one of the other decorators, such as gtk-window-decorator or kde4-window-decorator. As for selecting an emerald theme, all you do is click on it in emerald-theme-manager.

Your window decoration is definitely a separate issue from your rotating cube issue. The window decorator has nothing to do with the cube. In ccsm --> preferences, check to see if you are using the flat-file backend. If not, select it, re-enable the plugins, and restart compiz.

Adam

Yeah something is up with emerald, I maintain the packages over at slackbuilds.org but I haven't seen that error with emerald myself. However it does seem to be a seperate issue than the cube like adamk75 said, if you have wobbly windows that indicates compiz (at least to a part) is working, have you checked your key binding for rotate cube?

I got the cube to rotate. I went into CCSM, and checked in Prefrences for the 'Flat-file Backend' and it was selected. While I was there, I clicked 'Reset to Defaults. I went through CCSM and selected Desktop cube and Rotate cube, checked the key bindings, for Ctrl + Alt + arrow keys. That now works. The cube spins. Yea!

I tried GTK decorator and KDE4 Window decorator, neither gives me window decorations.

I still can not get any window decorator to work with WM compiz.

With compiz running, selecting gtk decorator, produces this:

I googled the warning at the bottom, there are many hits, I tried several fixes that worked for others.
They do not work for me.

This is my current screen section.

DisableGLXRootClipping is one the fixes ( doesn't work for me ).

I added this section because of another 'fix' I found.

I could not detect any difference.

Switching to KDE4 decorator produces this:

There are several fixes stating 'edit xorg.conf, and in the screen section change all occurrences of depth 32 to depth 24. Mine is set to depth 24, for some reason I get the warnings No GLXFBConfig for depth 32.

Has any one got any ideas on what I can try?

I see there is a latest version of emerald is 0.9.5 here -->http://cgit.compiz.org/fusion/decorators/emerald

I downloaded it, modified the version number in the emerald.SlackBuild script, however it will not build. It fails with I know next to squat about these scripts. Suggestions?

Sorry to hear you are still having trouble, can you post your entire /etc/X11/xorg.conf file for us? Also I checked the emerald gitweb and there has only been one change to the package between the release 0.8.8 and 0.9.5 so I don't think upgrading is going to make a difference. Plus I didn't see anything specifically about this but the 0.9 branch of the compiz packages are the C++ port which are not fully stable yet and IMO should be avoided at this time.

Here is my current /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

Well that honestly all looks good. I googled around but I can't seem to find anything related to your problem, other than changing your depth to 24bit which you have already done. I honestly don't think this is a emerald issue because none of the other window decorations are working, I'll post back if I can think of anything new, but what you could do for now is log into the compiz IRC channel at #compiz and ask for help there.

Out of curiousity, have you tried the nouveau driver?

Adam

Not since I installed the system. I used it for a few days as I configured the system after first install. I was under the impression the nouveau driver would not work with compiz.

The current situation I have is no window decorator works with compiz. The few plugins I enabled in compiz work; the cube spins, wobbly windows, move, re-size are all fine.

I'm sure emerald never starts successfully. I always see this if started from a konsole.

No idea how to fix this. I did some googling, but no success.

I booted into Magia, and played with compiz there. All decorators work, however I have to turn 'Loose Bindings' off for GTK and Kwin decorators to work. Tried the same thing in Slack, it still fails.

I'll give the IRC channel a whirl, never used it before. I'll update this thread if I make any progress.

One other strange thing, compiz-icon will not start successfully in KDE, it starts up fine in Xfce. This makes testing in KDE more difficult. I use Xfce most of the time, so this in not such a big deal.