Reply With QuoteI wonder if we'll see Canonical take a more active role in Compiz development, or at least the parts they use for Unity. If they don't, they might have to port the thing back to Mutter, lol.
Senior Member
At the moment, Compiz is dead upstream. Bugs are not getting fixed and stability is not great. The lead developer (only developer that's left now?) blogged "I have failed":
http://smspillaz.wordpress.com/2011/12/25/apology-2
Maintaining compiz in a distro is a lot of work because of that. Dropping it seems the obvious choice.
Junior Member
I wonder if we'll see Canonical take a more active role in Compiz development, or at least the parts they use for Unity. If they don't, they might have to port the thing back to Mutter, lol.
Senior Member
It's not: https://launchpad.net/compizOriginally Posted by RealNC
Red Hat
Canonical employs the lead Compiz developer.
Senior Member
Ironically, compiz still seems to be more useful, more stable and more lightweight than kdewin or gnomewin. And apparently many people feel that way; IIRC in the last phorinx survey there were still more compiz users than kde users or gnome users.
The ... oh WTH, lets call it 'develpment model' of compiz has of course a loooong history of being inconsistent to put it mildly.
Senior Member
Ubuntu is also trying to remove CCSM (compiz config settings manager) from Ubuntu, although of course they have to keep around compiz itself. Seems like all the distros are stripping away parts or all of compiz. Sad, but true. It used to be THE awesomest compositor, it was one of the first. But it seems to be quickly outdated by superior offerings such as kwin (nice job Martin Grasslin), and mutter (nice job GNOME folks).
Also, MATE desktop won't last long. Cinnamon is everything that I wanted from Gnome2, but uses mutter afaik. Too awesome.
Senior Member
It's faster and more stable, in my experience, at least compared to KWin.Ironically, compiz still seems to be more useful, more stable and more lightweight than kdewin or gnomewin
But it sucks as a window manager IMHO. It's the worst wm I've ever used, and I've used most. I need a window manager, not effects. KWin effects are actually more than enough for me and seem more professional and less in-your-face, but it's window management that makes the difference for me. When I switched back to KWin, all the minor annoyances with Compiz went away and using the computer was fun again -- the windows were doing what they should.
IMHO, Compiz never grew out of the "shiny bling" phase and focussed on window management. Perhaps it has made strides in the last few years, though, I haven't followed it closely.
Senior Member
It uses Muffin, a fork of Mutter.
You really have to distinguish window manager from desktop environment here. KDE, XFCE, LXDE and Gnome 2 are all window manager independent desktop environments and can easily use Compiz if so desired. Unity3D uses Compiz exclusively. So most Compiz users are also Gnome/KDE/Unity users; they are not mutually exclusive. Also the name of KDE's window manager is KWin and Gnome 3's Mutter. You could also use KWin with XFCE or Xfwm4 with KDE as they are not tied to single desktop environment either.
Senior Member
Have you tried using just kwin in 4.8? I had ALWAYS had performance issues with kwin, but in 4.8 its smooth as butter all the way.
Junior Member
Compiz
I have to admit that I also stopped using Compiz since I switched over to KDE 4. But, back in the KDE 3.5 days, I was really hooked on Compiz, playing around with it, trying to find the perfect balance between subtlety and in your face bling. Even though I don't use it anymore, it still feels like it would be the end of an era if Compiz was to die.
In my mind, Compiz will always be the original "Composited Desktop". They guys who opened our eyes to the possibilities...
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