I didn’t post questions about the not working Compiz just to skip the famous, obvious and hurting administrative answer : “But why you want to use Compiz?!” In my culture answer a question with another question is considered offensive.
So, I had to look for the solution by myself, still thinking to a great forum administrator who works to make this little “miracle” possible.
Well, I found also more relevant problems, for example Gambas, present in at least 3 differet repos but uninstallable, and I need it for little applets which I can write very fast, because I need such installation on 5 similar laptops.
Finally I decided to delete the fresh 11.4 “software limiting” installation and as final try I attempted the upgrade from my 11.3 installation. That was the right way and working carefully I got everything working, VMPlayer included, this one thanks a Fedora patch.
Concerning Compiz and Emerald, the cherry on top, I made following:
I deleted all the shipped Compiz packages and the configuration folder ~/.compiz
I copied the replacement folder from my 11.3 installation
I reinstalled all Compiz packages from hxxp://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/Compiz/openSUSE_11.2/
Emerald comes from hxxp://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home%3a/lOtz1009%3a/emerald/openSUSE_11.3/
In KDE, under “default applications - window manager” I selected Compiz.
It works perfectly. Fusion-Icon is not working due to absence of “python(abi) = 2.6”, replaced by a newer version. In this last emerald version, some earlier decorations do not look correctly, but in most cases it is easy to edit them in the emerald theme manager an make quickly the few necessary corrections.
Conclusion:
Compiz and Emerald are installable under Opensuse 11.4 and they work for me at 100%. If you have questions about the dependencies just ask and I will look in my installation.
Capodastro, this is a very good write up on how you installed Compiz and Emerald in openSUSE 11.4. I would say that this is not a problem request though and might have been better been placed in the Unreviewed How To and FAQ Section. Further I don’t think it is all that helpful to talk about past help. Consider that most of us are just volunteers here and it would have been extremely hard to answer this question. Your solution required a lot of research that you put forth to make this work. It would normally be hard for me to suggest adding in older repositories to openSUSE 11.4.
Anyway, I am very happy that you achieved your goal and I have booked marked your solution for future reference.
Hi Daniel,
As SuSE users we are all volunteers. Our distribution is quite complex and is impossible to know everything, so, there is not shame by saying “sorry, I don’t know!”. Is also impossible to take care for so many users and invest so much time in finding always the right solution. What I published was just the begin, the evidence that Compiz and Emerald do work in KDE 4.6. However, I used the less free time left to find the perfect solution, let me now inform occhigrigi (such a romantic name…).
SuSE seams to be the most flexible distribution, I use it since ever, I admire what Novell did and does at this subject and I hate posts giving the impression of bugs after all that work made by the distribution.
Have a great time and my congratulations!
ciao occhigrigi, purtroppo devo continuare in inglese.
Sorry for the late answer, I wont to find the perfect solution first :).
Installing Emerald with Compiz 0.9.2 under KDE 4.6 in openSUSE 11.4 -
Emerald is no longer maintained, but KDE made a module named Smragt (=emerald in german) containing the emerald engines. Such module is not distributed by default, must be compiled, and works well.
Instruction:
go in some of your folders, open the console and like they say type
git clone git://anongit.kde.org/smaragd
go in your new folder smaragt and read carefully the file INSTALL
Install from the repos what they say, follow exactly the compiling instructions and smaragt will appear between the other window decorations listed in the KDE configuration applet. To avoid mistakes, just use copy and paste
now read and follow step by step the following tread:
Home
Forum
English
Get Technical Help Here
Applications
Open SuSE 11.4 nVidia Kwin and Compiz
IMPORTANT! April 04 2011
After using and checking carefully during few days the installation with Compiz 0.9.4 and KDE 4.6.1 (4.6.1) “release 2” I discovered a bug:
Compiz gets in tilt after some use of plasmoids built with the nice “tabbed toolbar”, I mean Application launcher or Lancelot.
Workaround: substitute for the moment with Application Launcher menu.
By installing or uninstalling plasmoids is safer to do that with kwin as window manager.
April 06 2011
Well, I found further not working kde4 relevant applets, so I regard Compiz 0.9.4 as too unstable for daily use. For the moment I reinstalled the good old 0.8.6 version, ccsm doesn’t work by reason of unsatisfied python dependencies but I have still my old ini file which is also editable. Otherwise this version works perfectly and concerning speed or features I don’ t see any difference with 0.9.4. By using kwin I can also use the Emerald decorations because Smaragt is still compiled and installed.
Hi idecampo,
sorry for answering so late! Well, the answer is simple:
have a ~/.emerald/theme folder filled with some emerald theme.
now compile smaragt.
then select smaragt as window decoration in kwin: “configure desktop -> workspace appearance -> window decorations” NB: the look of smaragt should match your emerald theme.
configure compiz with ccsm, don’t use new plugins! NB: the old ccsm will not work. Don’t forget to activate the window decorations and the kde compatibility.
edit in yast your compiz repo and change 11.4 to 11.2.
under “default applications -> window manager” select compiz and it should work, I made it on 2 laptops.
let me know
