Sep
11
2007
Compiz Fusion 0.5.2 - Review
Posted by luna6
For the next round of Linux Releases (Ubuntu Gutsy, Fedora 8, OpenSuse 10.3, Mandriva 2008 etc) Compiz Fusion should be installed by default in those releases and with the release date looming not far ahead the time is ripe to give you a preview of what to expect from the latest Compiz Fusion. As most people probably know by now, the two major 3D compositing window managers on the Linux platform, Compiz and Beryl, merged together in April of this year and now work together under the banner of Compiz Fusion. The prior Beryl team works now on the plugins for Compiz Fusion, while the prior Compiz team works on the Compiz Fusion core. In the relatively short time span since the merger occurred a lot of positive synergy have come to fruition. Both eye candy and usability features has increased nicely in the current 0.5.2 development version of Compiz Fusion. Some of the more notable new features would be Shift Switcher, Widgets, and Expo views.
The graphical control panel for Compiz-Fusion is the “CompizConfig Settings Manager”. Similar to the previous Beryl Settings Manager, CompizConfig Settings Manager is intuitively laid out with categories grouped together by “General” “Accessibility” “Desktop” “Effects” “Extras” “Image Loading” “Utility” and “Window Management” sections.
Options in the Desktop Category that will likely draw the most attention would be “Desktop Cube” “Rotate Cube” “Desktop Plane” and “Expo”. By now the familiar 3D Rotating Desktop can be enabled through the separate “Desktop Cube” and Rotate Cube” check boxes in the “Desktop” category. Once you have enabled those feature clicking cntrl+alt+left or cntrl+alt+right will give you a spinning 3D view of your virtual desktops. Not a whole lot has changed in 0.5.2 in this regard but there really isn’t much need for improvements in this area. It already works very well.
A subtle but noticeable visual improvement to the 3D Desktops can be had by selecting the “Cube Reflection” checkbox found within the “Effects” category. Once that is enabled your 3D Desktop cubes will have an elegant reflection effect visible at the bottom of the cube. From the the pictures below you can notice the difference instantly.
Furthermore, if you would rather view your desktops from within the cube, simply check the “Inside Cube” box found within the /Desktop Cube/Behavior tab in CompizConfig Settings Manager. The result looks like this.
You can also have as many desktops as you want. By selecting General Options/Desktop Settings tab in the General category you can set however many horizontal and vertical desktops you wish to use. If you prefer to work with only two desktop and enable Rotating Desktops you can get a simple 3D flipping effect that works very well. Furthermore if you select an odd number like 5 desktops you get a rather interesting Pentagon shaped Cube.
Although this is possible without Compiz-Fusion, running Windows XP inside of VMware Server and placing it on a desktop fullscreen and then using Compiz-Fusion to rotate between the desktops was something I found useful and looked cool as well.
To view all your desktops simultaneously Compiz-Fusion 0.5.2 has included a nifty “Expo” feature. First check the box for Desktop/Expo then hit Super(Windows)+E keys to enable a view of all of your desktops standing side by side. This is similar to hitting alt+cntrl+down with the rotating cubes, but with Expo the view stays active until you hit “Enter”. You also have a view of all desktops on one screen. For eye candy, when you launch the “Expo” view, the desktop slides inward in a neat 3D manner. You can also enable “Tilt View” by checking the box for “Tilt View” in Desktop/Expo/Behavior.
WIDGETS
One of the coolest new features found in Compiz-Fusion would be “Widgets”. Similar to dashboard in OS X, but even more customizable, “Widgets” will likely become to Compiz Fusion what Superkaramba has become to KDE. As with OS X’s dashboard you can press the “F9″ key to launch an view of the widgets running on your desktop. An overlay window will appear (just like in OS X) and display whatever Screenlets you have installed. Furthermore if you would rather have the Screenlets appear constantly on the desktop ala “Superkaramba” you can right click any of the active “Screenlets” and toggle the checkbox for “Widgets”. This would make the Screenelts work either lin OSX’s Dashboard manner (appear only with F9 key) or Superkaramba style (stay on the desktop all the time). For more information on installing “Screenlets” head on over to http://www.screenlets.org/ or http://hendrik.kaju.pri.ee/screenlets/.
WINDOW MANAGEMENT
To manage all the active Windows that are running on the desktop Compiz-Fusion 0.5.2 brings about a new “Shift Switcher” feature, which is reminescent the effects found on Microsoft Vista. To enable “Shift-Switcher” you would select Window Management/Shift-Switcher from within CompizConfig Settings Manager. Once that plugin is activated hitting the Shift+Super(Window)+S keys on your keyboard will active the window manager. Furthermore once you are in Shift Switcher view, hitting either the left or right keys will flip through the open Windows ala Cover Flow style in iTunes. That works really well.
The more familiar “Ring Switcher” is still available in Compiz-Fusion as well. By selecting the checkbox next to Window Management/Ring Switcher (make sure Shift Switcher is unchecked if you want to Ring Switcher work in the manner as it did in Beryl) and then hitting the Super(Windows)+Tab keys you will give you a circuler 3D view of all the opened windows on your desktop. Alt+Super(Windows)+Tab will then cycle through the applications similar to watching a carousel. I did prefer the “Shift Switcher” view but “Ring Switcher” worked fine as well.
For some pure mindless fun Compiz-Fusion also includes the “Paint on the Screen” effect, which literally will show an animated 3d fire burning on your desktop. This one rates very low on the usefulness scale, but does provide for some interesting effects as shown below. Also if the sight of a burning fire gets a little to warm for your tastes try to douse it with the cool water/rain effects.
ACCESSIBILITY
If you suffer from ADD or perhaps just like concentrating on one active window onlty, Compiz-Fusion can provide some much needed relief. By checking the box next Accessability/ADD Helper the active window will be highlighted, while all other windows will be dimmed to a darker grey.
For people with poor eyesight or if you have a large monitor and come across something really tiny, you can use Compiz-Fusion’s enhanced zoom feature to easily zoom in on any area of desktop. First check the box next to “Accessability/Enhanced Zoom Desktop” then hit Super(Windows)+right mouse to zoom in on the selected area. Magnification works great and this will likely prove useful for the young and the old alike.
CONCLUSION
Compiz Fusion is certainly bringing some of the more exciting features found on any computing platform to the Linux desktop. With their development 0.5.2 release there’s just a whole lot more to get excited about. Widgets will most likely become insanely popular and should quickly see growth of new third party applications for that plugin. “Shift Switcher” is an absolutely great way to manage all your active windows and there’s even a Cover Flow like ability to flip through those active windows. “Expo” is an exciting new way to view all your virtual desktops on one screen. Simply stated, whenever your favorite Linux distro releases their next big release, expect to see Compiz Fusion bundled with it and prepare to be impressed. Now that I have used Compiz Fusion extensively, going back to a regular 2D desktop is just something I’m not willing to do. Nice job Compiz Fusion.
*Wallpaper used in Photos can be downloaded here.
Users Rating: 8.65 
(17 votes)
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Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy) Desktop Edition - Review
Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 - New Features
openSUSE 10.3 - Review
Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn
Debian 4.0 (Etch)
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Comments
20 Comments so far
Compiz Fusion is looking SWEET! It’s awesome knowing it’ll be included in the Gusty release. I was planning on installing Ubuntu on my uncle’s old computer, but now I’m thinking I might just delay that till the new release.
Thanks for the great review!
Samurai and Arnon : I’ve added the wallpaper link at the bottom of the review (below conclusions) for download. Its actually a publicity shot from the Japanese movie Honey & Clover.
Some great stuff.. a lot is just eye candy which I’d turn off after the obligatory whirl, but some features, like expo and particularly the zoom feature can be invaluable on a day to day basis (very handy for dealing with too small graphics on high res displays, or examining defects during development). The last version also had an interesting screen annotation feature which I hope is developed.
I hope it works stably in time for distro releases, the last versions would stop working randomly.
Been using 0.52 for a month with ubuntu - love it. it had a few bugs as they were just upgrading it but now it’s near perfect! Can’t wait to get Gutsy Gibbon on my laptop!
Wish I could get this to work properly on any of my nix boxes. My fault though just not willing to put in the time to figure out the right config on any of the three boxes I have Linux on now. Oh for more hours in the day.
Oh, by the way, Compiz Fusion rocks!
Yeah, your wallpaper is pretty cool. Would be nice to have a link or if you could share it with us.
Thanks in advance ;-)
could you share your desktop wallpaper!?!?:P
Plumber Man : I wouldn’t count on Compiz Fusion working inside of VMware..might as well try installing Windows inside of VMware from Linux :)
I wonder if this is going to work for Linux running inside VMWare since VMWare lacks decent 3D support for Linux still.
Looks pretty cool. I’ll probably turn most of it off as it’s probably distracting but I can see that it’ll draw people who are impressed by the gee-whiz factor. Some of it will probably be good for usability though and I’ll keep those features turned on. I do like OS X’s dashboard and active corners.
I want a widget for voo2do.com
(via their api)
:)
oneofmany - “Also how stable is the new release and did you experience any slow down.”
I didn’t go into details on performance issues as Compiz-Fusion .0.5.2 is a development release and running over a developmental version of Ubuntu (Gutsy). Performance issues will be covered with the release of the stable versions of Gutsy, Fedora 8 etc.
With that said, performance was good without noticeable slowdowns. I did encounter the occasional black windows (specific to Nvidia?) which will hopefully be sorted out by the next stable release of Compiz and Gutsy.
“Oh and if you are talking about all these different distributions why are you testing Compiz Fusion only on ubuntu?”
Because they are all in development and provides basically the same feature sets?
you spelled accessibility wrong
Can you run opengl/sdl games?
sure compiz fusion is nice but how is the integration with the desktop and applications? I would like to know how well it integrates with say KDE or even KDE4. Also how stable is the new release and did you experience any slow down. Sure eye candy is nice but when it comes to productivity I usually find it slowing me down rather than helping me achieve my tasks. Too much eye candy is usually a distraction and if it actually runs slower than the old 2d interface then it’s really annoying.
So some more information on the performance as well as on the new features would be much appreciated. Oh and if you are talking about all these different distributions why are you testing Compiz Fusion only on ubuntu?
excuse me whilst i correct a few technical details for you :D
firstly, compiz fusion is a seperate project to compiz, but they both work with each other. Compiz is the core and compiz-fusion are the packages that enhance the core.
Secondly, screenlets is a completely seperate project to compiz-fusion lead by Rico (RYX, as he’s known on the forums). compiz-fusion includes the widget plugin which makes it so that any window set as a widget (this can be any window, not just screenlets) will apear when you press the button you assign in ccsm for the widget plugin….
as for screenlets, here is the website for them http://screenlets.org/index.php/Home
and a forum is coming soon http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/showpost.php?p=28097&postcount=42
:D
delfick,
compiz-fusion.org moderator
Looks freaking fantastic! I can’t wait to try out Compiz-Fusion as I have had only spotty luck with Beryl. I’m really amazed at how rapidly everything develops in Linux. Windows is in some serious heap of trouble.
Hey thanks for mentioning it. I see how preview would have caused confusion. Yes this article is covering 0.5.2 and previewing the release for the upcoming Linux releases. So thanks for mentioning as title has been changed to clear up any confusions.
preview? it’s already out mate. review perhaps…