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I'm quite new to Linux on the desktop, having using it on servers for years.
The basic question:
If I don't want visual effects, is there any reason I need or want to have compiz
installed at all?
More details if you want them:
I've got a fresh Ubuntu 10.04 LTS desktop install. Since the compiz bug that makes the "show desktop" button not work correctly drives me nuts and I'm not married to having visual effects anyway, I figured I'd just turn them off. And so I did that (System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Visual Effects, choose "None", and close). As far as I can tell, this successfully terminates the compiz process and fires up metacity instead. So far so good.
But the next time I boot the machine, visual effects are re-enabled (the "Extra" setting, in fact -- and don't think that window drag effect isn't very disconcerting when it shows up out of the blue when you've never seen it before!).
So naturally I've looked for and ultimately filed a bug with the Gnome project, but in the meantime, I don't want to have to muck about with this every time I boot. While I could fight a rearguard action (put metacity --replace
in my Gnome startup script or something), it seems more straightforward to just uninstall compiz entirely.
Any reason I shouldn't do that? Is compiz
doing something else for me? I mean, from the project description I think it's just a cool window manager and if I'm happy with metacity, fine, but as I'm a newbie to this stuff on the desktop...
You're using Ubuntu 10.04 / Gnome 2.30.2? I can't imagine what would be special about my situation, it really is a basic install. Certainly no issue with other settings being remembered. – T.J. Crowder – 2010-09-12T21:52:58.727
@TJCrowder: Same version of both. – hotei – 2010-09-12T22:09:08.297
@hotel: Thanks. V. strange. I've done virtually nothing "custom" on this workstation. – T.J. Crowder – 2010-09-13T14:29:19.107