Many people requested an update of my set up guide to the version of Compiz Fusion found in Ubuntu's latest release "Hardy Heron". From the beginning I was reluctant to do that, because the official current stable release is still Compiz 0.6.2 / Compiz Fusion 0.6.0.

Compiz Fusion team has released 4 new plugins and couple of new features to Compiz Fusion. Here are they:

Changes are part of Nature so as with Technology.. Though this cannot be True for Windows and Mac cause the life cycle of a single Version is too much which is not the case with Linux.. Open Source evolve at very rapid rate and with evolution comes new & special changes … Today with a hike in Linux acceptance its pretty hard for competitors to provide similar solutions at free of cost. Open Source is known for User Interaction with Operating System which cannot be done with other OS

Welcome to another edition of Compiz Fusion Community News. In this edition, I will be covering numerous bug fixes that have been made to Compiz and Fusion as well as covering some new features that just came in and some interesting user plugins found on our forum. Among those being atlantis2, fireflies, smackpad, Autumn, cubedbus and filedebug.

David Mikos has been busy adding tons of improvement to atlantis plugin, fishes now move in school, another cool new addition is water and waves to complete the picture of a fish tank. It would be added to git packages soon.

Compiz brings a lot of bling to the Linux desktop, but with such an extensive selection of configurable features, it can sometimes be difficult to figure out how to take advantage of specific functionality. Several readers have asked me how to use Compiz to make menus and tooltips transparent, so I figured I'd share this trick with the Open Ended audience.

I cannot count how many times I receive e-mails where I hear about the poor soul who opted to take whichever distro for a test drive, only to discover that Compiz, Beryl, and these days; Compiz-Fusion has left the user scratching their head. To be clear, I believe you should be using Linux for intelligent reasons: secure, free and customized to suit your needs.

So you want to get extra cool effects using Compiz Fusion as it’s built into your new Ubuntu 7.1o install but you’re unsure how to get more than a few wobbly windows or how to even turn on wobbly windows? Here’s the quick way to do it.

Two weeks ago, I wrote a review about Desktop effects by default in Gutsy - how Compiz Fusion enhances Ubuntu's desktop of version 7.10. I published it by the time the beta was still fresh. We have passed the release candidate by now, so this is pretty much the actual state of affairs. Time to see what has been fixed (and what not) or generally improved.

The beta of Ubuntu's next release (7.10 Gutsy Gibbon) is out - time to review the well discussed decision to incorporate desktop effects by default in this version.

Desktop effects vs. Compiz

Since this topic has caused a lot of confusion lately (especially since Feisty introduced it's Desktop Effects), I feel it's time to shed some light.

Rather than reply to the comments left on my last post I’ve decided to write this so more people will see the answers. First of all, my source of info is me. I’m on the compiz team in Ubuntu.

So compiz-fusion is the neat new whiz-bang thing out on the block. While I was on my ATI graphics card I half-lamented and half-scoffed the very neat-looking but not quite practical screen shots and video captures from those playing around with Beryl and Compiz. Now that I’ve got my sweet little System76 with an Intel GPU, I can run Compiz in my Free Software environment, and I must confess that there is some real meat in there; it’s not all just eye-candy.

Animated wallpaper may not be very useful, it just looks sweet. In this how-to I will explain setting up an animated background that works with Compiz Fusion on Ubuntu using a program called XWinWrap.

In the current version of GNOME there is no way to turn off tooltips on the panel. This is an annoyance when using the Compiz Fusion Window Previews plugin, which shows a thumbnail of a window. The yellow GNOME tooltip stills shows up under the fancy Compiz preview.

An excellent feature of Beryl was the tray icon that allowed users to easily switch window managers and decorators. A similar icon for Compiz Fusion is now available but is not included in most repositories.

Screenlets are themed mini-applications programmed in Python. They are comparable to the widgets in OSX and Windows. Screenlets are drawn with vector graphics and nice transparency effects, and therefore need a compositing window manager like Compiz.