Compiz 0.9.14 Released As First Update In Over Two Years

[rukur]

Compiz is still a thing. I seriously miss wobbly windows !

[skeevy420]

Doesn't seem to me to be at the same level as Compiz.
The Cube in KDE is much more basic, I cannot start to rotate it just by clicking the middle mouse button on desktop, not sure if it has the background features as in Compiz, no different wallpapers per workspaces, no negative plugins.
Anyway I haven't use Compiz in a long time and I'm still new to KDE, but I miss a lot Compiz features.
KDE is good, but I don't see yet many of the Compiz features that I was using 10 years ago.
Also I think they're refusing to implement the different wallpapers per workspace because they say it's too difficult to implement.
Compiz had this, it was not perfect, but at least it was trying to solve a big usability problem making it very easy to differentiate between workspaces.

KDE doesn't allow setting keyboard shortcuts with the mouse....yeah....I know....but it is possible with a tiny bit of effort and a few packages.

• Install xbindkeys, xautomation, and xorg-xev
• Optional: Create a default xbindkeys template with "xbindkeys --defaults > ~/.xbindkeysrc"
• It's optional, but you'll need that file and making it like that is like a dumbed-down man page
• Use "xev" to get your mouse button code (mine is 2)
• In ~/.xbindkeysrc I needed to add:

# Bind "middle" mouse button to Ctrl+F11 for KDE desktop cube
"xte 'keydown Control_L' 'key F11' 'keyup Control_L'"
  b:2

• Go to the Plasma Window Manager Effects settings and enable the cube
• Run "xbindkeys" (or "killall xbindkeys && xbindkeys" if you tweak the rc after running it)
• Profit

It isn't the exact same. One middle click will open the cube, holding left click will move it around, and a 2nd middle click will exit it.


ALTERNATE METHOD VIA PIPER
If you have a supported mouse, the easiest way is to use Piper, a tool to configure gaming mice, and setting the shortcut with its GUI. No text file editing at all.

If your mouse supports it, add Piper to the list of required tools to have on Linux.

[Vistaus]

I don't understand why is not having more developers and more releases when it's such a useful program for usability, not to mention all the eye-candy stuff that puts Linux well ahead Windows.

I like Compiz as well, but clearly you've never heard of Object Desktop and WindowBlinds for Windows? You can pretty much achieve the same thing with those. The only difference is that Compiz is FOSS, but it's possible nonetheless.

[Vistaus]

Doesn't seem to me to be at the same level as Compiz.
The Cube in KDE is much more basic, I cannot start to rotate it just by clicking the middle mouse button on desktop, not sure if it has the background features as in Compiz, no different wallpapers per workspaces, no negative plugins.
Anyway I haven't use Compiz in a long time and I'm still new to KDE, but I miss a lot Compiz features.
KDE is good, but I don't see yet many of the Compiz features that I was using 10 years ago.
Also I think they're refusing to implement the different wallpapers per workspace because they say it's too difficult to implement.
Compiz had this, it was not perfect, but at least it was trying to solve a big usability problem making it very easy to differentiate between workspaces.

Lolwut? You can customize the Cube in KDE all you want and have different wallpapers per workspace/activity. I get that you're new and that's fine, but as long as you're new, you'd better ask questions about this instead of accusing them of not implementing stuff, which is totally uncalled for since it's already implemented. The only thing I can imagine for missing a few things is maybe because Kubuntu is not well-configured, but even if that was the case, then that's a Kubuntu issue, not a KDE issue.

[Vistaus]

Sweet memories of wobbly windows exploding in pieces

That memory is still alive in KWin.

[bregma]

One of the reasons Compiz is still a good solution is because it gives support to people who have less than ideal vision. The other more modern solutions have wonderful interfaces created by visually-oriented designers who haven't given much thought to accessibility or how useful their pretty pictures and nested menus are to those who lack their finely honed vision or fine motor control. Accessibility workarounds are generally shoehorned in as a half-assed afterthought, or at least will be when the development schedule gets around to it (but first, a full rewrite using the next major version of an underlying library that reimplements everything already available). If you're perfect, there's the mainstream desktops. For the rest of us, there's Compiz.

Also, wobbly windows were always cool, and they're still cool. Your Windows 10 or MacOS X not being able to do it means nothing.

[Weasel]

Lolwut? You can customize the Cube in KDE all you want and have different wallpapers per workspace/activity. I get that you're new and that's fine, but as long as you're new, you'd better ask questions about this instead of accusing them of not implementing stuff, which is totally uncalled for since it's already implemented. The only thing I can imagine for missing a few things is maybe because Kubuntu is not well-configured, but even if that was the case, then that's a Kubuntu issue, not a KDE issue.

How about extended zoom?

[angrypie]

its a resource hog if you have a low powered computer

Really? Compiz's greatest appeal was running on crappy low-end stuff at a time when Vista required 512MB of RAM and a Directx 9 GPU as a minimum.

The crappiest computer I could get it to run was a P3 with an MX400 and 256MB of RAM. It performed well enough to be used as a daily driver.

Of course I don't expect such a feat in 2019, because software got way too bloated for anything slower than a Brisbane Athlon X2 or a Conroe with 4+ GB of RAM.

[mzs.112000]

Really? Compiz's greatest appeal was running on crappy low-end stuff at a time when Vista required 512MB of RAM and a Directx 9 GPU as a minimum.

The crappiest computer I could get it to run was a P3 with an MX400 and 256MB of RAM. It performed well enough to be used as a daily driver

Of course I don't expect such a feat in 2019, because software got way too bloated for anything slower than a Brisbane Athlon X2 or a Conroe with 4+ GB of RAM.

Yeah, the funny thing is, software gets more and more bloated, yet functionality isn't catching up...
Right now, I am considering a new(er) laptop. Since it's getting to the point where things don't support it anymore, even on Linux. I upgraded to a QX9300, which increased raw power, but it still doesn't seem to handle certain tasks any better than the P8700 did. I have a feeling that 2019 might end up being the last year for Penryn-based systems, and ones with less than 6GB of RAM.

At this point, I can either spend the money to put in an SSD, upgrade my RAM to 8GB, install a new WiFi card, add a CrystalHD video decoder, and upgrade to a 1920x1200 LCD, for the amazing price of $450. OR, I can just put that $450 towards a newer laptop(doesn't need to be brand new, I just need it to have a CPU that's newer than Penryn, Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge are both perfectly suitable. Also, needs to have DDR3 RAM. Those can now be had for less than $300. The extra $150 will go towards adding a SSD and 8GB of DDR3 RAM).

As far as the P3 with MX400 and 256MB RAM, that could be used as a daily machine... I recently tried to revive an old machine with a P4 2.4GHz, 512MB RAM, and some unknown Intel iGPU. It failed terribly. First, the main distro's no longer provide 32-bit builds, which limited me to either an older distro or one of the boutique distros that still has 32-bit support. Second, it turns out, this machine had trouble booting from my USB drive, some USB drives would work, but it was finicky about which ones, I had to burn a CD with the distro on it. That was another limiting factor(because while Lubuntu still provided 32bit ISO's, even they were too big for burning to a CD). So, I ended up having to download a boot-loader program and burn it to a CD, this allowed me to boot from the CD to a boot menu, select my USB from a menu, and then the program on CD would boot Lubuntu from the USB(although for some reason I was limited to 4x CD speeds.). Once I got the machine to boot into Lubuntu, it was smooth sailing to wipe the XP Home installation and get Lubuntu installed.
Although it booted up and worked relatively fine, I could tell that the 512MB RAM was the main limiting factor, starting Firefox or Libreoffice would immediately fill the RAM, at which point, it started thrashing the 13-year old 80GB 4200RPM drive, which really slowed things down even more. Also, the USB WiFi card posed an issue since it kept disconnecting every 10 minutes(I suspect it wasn't the WiFi card's problem or Linux, I think it was the bad USB port on the computer).

I briefly considered upgrading that machine, I was going to install a PCI(*not* PCIe), WiFi 802.11G card, which would be faster than the 12Mbps through the USB port. In addition, I would have upgraded the RAM to 2GB(which would have reduced the disk thrashing), and installed a new SSD(cheapo Chinese-special KingSpec SSD's make perfect upgrades to revive ancient computers, sure, they're made from cut-rate B-grade parts, and are slower than a good SSD, but it is still fast enough to max-out the PATA bus). Lastly, I would have installed a PCI GPU(not a PCIe one), because even a crappy(by modern standards one) would still be better than whatever was in there before.

But, I abandoned those plans, because after coming up with my parts list, I figured that spending $120 on a crappy P4, isn't going to be a smart financial decision. Even if I sold it afterwards, whoever buys such a machine would be better off picking up a Core2Duo laptop(basically, *any* C2D will be miles better than the 32bit P4 desktop).

[Vistaus]

How about extended zoom?

Available here on Solus Plasma Edition.