How to install Compiz on Ubuntu MATE

A few hours ago we saw on our sister site LinuxAddicts about the arrival of Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca, which in its variant with MATE desktop brings Compiz integration as a highlight. And it is that this has been something that for a long time the users of the desktop based on GNOME 2 have tried to achieve, something that of course is possible but that in many cases was more complicated than necessary, although luckily according to the versions of MATE Some key aspects of its configuration are also improving, which in turn makes it possible to use the best composite plugin and decoration available today in the Linux world.

In this post we will see how to install Compiz on Ubuntu MATE, the variant of the Canonical distro that includes the GNOME 2 fork as its main desktop. And since it is a procedure 'by hand' and not something included by default in this distro, the results may vary a lot according to the hardware of each computer and also to the pre-existing configuration and therefore we will also show how to uninstall everything to leave things as they were.

But first things first, which in our case is install Compiz and its related plugins, for which we simply execute a command from the terminal since, remember, this plugin is already included in the official Ubuntu repositories:

sudo apt-get install compiz compiz-plugins compizconfig-settings-manager

Then what we have left is to activate the Compiz Window Decoration plugin, for which we must launch the CompizConfig configuration manager, so let's System -> Preferences -> CompizConfig, and once there we go to the Effects section, where we will find 'Window decoration'. We mark the checkbox next to it and that will suffice for now.

Now we must run Compiz, but without setting it as a default element: this is very useful in case something goes wrong and we realize that we don't want to leave it installed, since it does not make changes to our system. What we do is press Alt + F2 to open the dialog of 'Run application' and we enter:

compiz --replace

Now comes the time try compiz, launch applications, minimize them, change work area, maximize windows, switch between them using Alt + Tab and everything we usually do in our use of Linux, to see how MATE behaves together with this plugin that we have installed. If we see that we like it and we are satisfied with the performance, we can think about the possibility of letting the changes be permanent, for which we open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and execute:

gsettings set org.mate.session.required-components windowmanager compiz

Another way to accomplish what we just mentioned is to open the Dconf editor and navigate to the section org -> mate -> desktop -> session -> required-components, and in the option called 'windowmanager' replace 'frame' (which is MATE's window manager) by 'compiz'. That's it, and Compiz will already be established by default in our system.

Did something happen and we want to remove Compiz? No problem, this is Linux and here the user has all the power, so all we have to do is open a terminal window and run:

GSETTINGS RESET ORG.MATE.SESSION.Required-Components WindowManager

Or by launching the Dconf editor again, navigate to org -> mate -> desktop -> session -> required-components and after selecting 'windowmanager' click on the 'Set as default' option. Now we just have to close the session and start it again, and Compiz will no longer be running, all that remains to leave everything absolutely the same as at the beginning is to uninstall it:

sudo apt-get purge compiz compiz-plugins-default compiz-plugins compizconfig-settings-manager