Compton config doesn't seem to do anything

[eddyc]

Hello,

I hope this is the right section of the forum to post in. Please let me know if not.

I first installed Mint 15 (XFCE) x64 a week ago on my T420 Thinkpad. I noticed that I was having a problem with tearing when watching video and when scrolling / moving windows around.

I found the instructions here: http://duncanlock.net/blog/2013/06/07/how-to-switch-to-compton-for-beautiful-tear-free-compositing-in-xfce/

This indicates that the tearing issue can be solved by installing Compton for compositing.

I followed the instructions... installed, set up the config file and added compton to the list of startup applications. The tearing issue on video is fixed BUT it is not fixed for scrolling / moving windows and I noticed that none of the shadow / fading effects mentioned in the instructions are being applied. I then tried changing some settings in the config file (e.g. making window titles completely transparent) to check whether any changes are being applied. They aren't.

I think that for some reason compton isn't picking up my config.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Any help would be fantastic. Thanks in advance.

[eddyc]

UPDATE:

I think I was barking up the wrong tree. It looks like Compton was not doing anything at all. I'm not sure why installing it fixed the tearing issue in video playback but that is a side issue.

I was trying to run netflix-desktop and got an error message: "compositing is not enabled...". After a bit of fiddling around I rebooted the machine, went into BIOS and switched from Integrated Graphics to Discreet Graphics (I normally keep my nvidia card turned off because it kills the battery and I don't play games or anything). Running with the nvidia card turned on I found that netflix-desktop worked fine and that I was suddenly seeing Compton's fading effects. I've tried changing the values in the config file and it seems to be working fine.

So the issue is actually just that I can't get Compton working in my integrated Intel graphics (i5-2520M). Should Compton be able to run in integrated graphics or does it need something more powerful?

Any help would be great

2nd update -

For the first time I tried launching compton from the terminal. Command 'compton'. I get the following:

Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
glx_init(): No GLX extension.
Pattern "": PCRE regular expression study failed: (null)

[eddyc]

Right!

Solved my problem after a lot of fiddling around.

By running

Code: Select all

inxi -Gx 

in a terminal I found that I was getting nothing for the GLX Renderer.

I then found this post:

http://antix.freeforums.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3713&start=0&view=print

I think the issue is that when I boot up with my Discreet card activated the nvidia drivers wipe over the intel card's ability to use hardware acceleration. Not sure why.

Uninstalling all of the nvidia drivers solved the problem. I am now using compton successfully on the integrated card... phew.

For the record this is what I used to remove the nvidia drivers.

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apt-get purge nvidia*
apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg-video-intel  libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-core
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
update-alternatives --remove gl_conf /usr/lib/nvidia-current/ld.so.conf

In my research I did see a warning that this might cause problems for Ubuntu users because there are ubuntu-desktop dependencies. All I can say is that it worked for me on Mint 15 (XFCE).

I hope this helps someone else along the way.

Any comments from more knowledgeable people would still be very welcome because I have pretty much no idea what went wrong or what I did to fix it!

[ajgreeny]

I found that it needed the command

Code: Select all

compton --backend glx --vsync opengl-swc

on my box with Intel HD4000 graphics to start compton properly, which I put in a shell script and pointed to that script in my startup applications list.

However, using the latest xserver-xorg-video-intel package from the ppa for precise, and simply using the standard xfce/xubuntu compositor, I have no tearing or other problems showing on anything, even HD videos show perfectly, so I no longer bother with compton, which gave me many odd error messages in ~/.xsession-errors.

[eddyc]

However, using the latest xserver-xorg-video-intel package from the ppa for precise, and simply using the standard xfce/xubuntu compositor, I have no tearing or other problems showing on anything, even HD videos show perfectly, so I no longer bother with compton, which gave me many odd error messages in ~/.xsession-errors.

Thanks for the tip. I'll try that.

Sorry for the newbie question but I thought that the intel graphics drivers were included in the linux kernel, so why is there a need to install another package?

Also is this the ppa you mean?

Code: Select all

ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa

[ajgreeny]

Sorry for the delay in answering.
The ppa I use is at ppa:glasen/intel-driver

[hunter75]

just installed compton in Mint 16 Xfce from richardgv ppa:
https://launchpad.net/~richardgv/+archive/compton

I run it by: "compton --config /home/user/.config/compton.conf and the conf file is the following:

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# Shadow
shadow = true;            					# Enabled client-side shadows on windows.
no-dock-shadow = true;        	# Avoid drawing shadows on dock/panel windows.
no-dnd-shadow = true;        	# Don't draw shadows on DND windows.
clear-shadow = true;        			# Zero the part of the shadow's mask behind the window (experimental).
shadow-radius = 7;        				# The blur radius for shadows. (default 12)
shadow-offset-x = -7;        		# The left offset for shadows. (default -15)
shadow-offset-y = -7;        		# The top offset for shadows. (default -15)
shadow-exclude = [
 "! name~=''",
 "n:e:Notification",
 "n:e:Plank",
 "n:e:Docky",
 "g:e:Synapse",
 "g:e:Kupfer",
 "g:e:Conky",
 "n:w:*Firefox*",
 "n:w:*Chrome*",
 "n:w:*Chromium*",
 "class_g ?= 'Notify-osd'",
 "class_g ?= 'Cairo-dock'",
 "class_g ?= 'Xfce4-notifyd'",
 "class_g ?= 'Xfce4-power-manager'"
];

# Opacity
menu-opacity = 0.9;										# The opacity for menus. (default 1.0)
inactive-opacity = 0.9;									# Default opacity of inactive windows. (0.0 - 1.0)
# active-opacity = 0.8;									# Default opacity for active windows. (0.0 - 1.0)
# frame-opacity = 0.8;									# Opacity of window titlebars and borders. (0.1 - 1.0)
# inactive-opacity-override = true;			# Let inactive opacity set by 'inactive-opacity' overrides
																					# value of _NET_WM_OPACITY. Bad choice.
alpha-step = 0.06;											# XRender backend: Step size for alpha pictures. Increasing
																					# it may result in less X resource usage,
																					# Yet fading may look bad.
# inactive-dim = 0.2;										# Dim inactive windows. (0.0 - 1.0)
# inactive-dim-fixed = true;							# Do not let dimness adjust based on window opacity.
# blur-background = true;							# Blur background of transparent windows.
																					# Bad performance with X Render backend.
																					# GLX backend is preferred.
# blur-background-frame = true;				# Blur background of opaque windows with transparent
																					# frames as well.
blur-background-fixed = false;				# Do not let blur radius adjust based on window opacity.
blur-background-exclude = [ "window_type = 'dock'", "window_type = 'desktop'" ];
																					# Exclude conditions for background blur.

# Fading
fading = true;														# Fade windows during opacity changes.
# fade-delta = 30;												# The time between steps in a fade in milliseconds. (default 10).
fade-in-step = 0.03;											# Opacity change between steps while fading in. (default 0.028).
fade-out-step = 0.03;										# Opacity change between steps while fading out. (default 0.03).
# no-fading-openclose = true;					# Avoid fade windows in/out when opening/closing.
fade-exclude = [ ];											# Exclude conditions for fading.

# Other
backend = "glx"													# Backend to use: "xrender" or "glx". GLX backend is typically
																					# much faster but depends on a sane driver.
glx-no-stencil = true;	
glx-no-rebind-pixmap = true;												
																																			
mark-wmwin-focused = true;					# Try to detect WM windows and mark them as active.
mark-ovredir-focused = true;					# Mark all non-WM but override-redirect windows active (e.g. menus).
use-ewmh-active-win = false;					# Use EWMH _NET_WM_ACTIVE_WINDOW to determine which window is focused
																					# instead of using FocusIn/Out events. Usually more reliable but
																					# depends on a EWMH-compliant WM.
detect-rounded-corners = true;				# Detect rounded corners and treat them as rectangular when --shadow-ignore- shaped is on.
detect-client-opacity = true;						# Detect _NET_WM_OPACITY on client windows, useful for window
																					# managers not passing _NET_WM_OPACITY of client windows to frame
																					# windows.
refresh-rate = 0;												# For --sw-opti: Specify refresh rate of the screen. 0 for auto.
vsync = "opengl-swc";									# "none", "drm", "opengl", "opengl-oml", "opengl-swc", "opengl-mswc" 
																					# See man page for more details.
dbe = false;															# Enable DBE painting mode. Rarely needed.
paint-on-overlay = true;								# Painting on X Composite overlay window. Recommended.
sw-opti = false;													# Limit compton to repaint at most once every 1 / refresh_rate.
																					# Incompatible with certain VSync methods.
unredir-if-possible = false;						# Unredirect all windows if a full-screen opaque window is
																					# detected, to maximize performance for full-screen windows.
focus-exclude = [ ];											# A list of conditions of windows that should always be considered
																					# focused.
detect-transient = true;								# Use WM_TRANSIENT_FOR to group windows, and consider windows in
																					# the same group focused at the same time.
detect-client-leader = true;						# Use WM_CLIENT_LEADER to group windows.
invert-color-include = [ ];							# Conditions for windows to be painted with inverted color.

# Window type settings
wintypes:
{
  tooltip = { fade = true; shadow = false; opacity = 0.75; focus = true; };
  # fade: Fade the particular type of windows.
  # shadow: Give those windows shadow
  # opacity: Default opacity for the type of windows.
  # focus: Whether to always consider windows of this type focused.
};

It works but everything seems to run slower compared to default xfce composite
I suppose the problem is the conf file (too many active effects?) but I'm not sure;
can you share your configuration and feedback on compton?
Thanks.

[dreamkatcha]

Hi,

After experiencing unacceptable tearing in all videos, and across all movie players in XFCE Petra, I went searching for a solution. I came across the article on Duncan's site where he discusses Compton and decided to give it a go using the standard installation instructions. It fixed my Intel HD4000 tearing issues immediately, but I sense now that the CPU load is much more excessive than it used to be. Sometimes even when my laptop is idling, the fan will spin up for no apparent reason. I don't think it did that before, but then maybe I'm just looking out for issues because I read that Compton has a tendency to put systems under greater strain.

Has anyone managed to tweak it to find a happy medium?

[antsunrise]

Not to ask dumb question. But you sure you disabled xfce's composition in xfce settings?