[desktop-discuss] Eye Candy for Solaris's Desktop - Compiz on Solaris x86

[Brian Cameron]

Erwann:

Sorry for my slow response.  Took me some time to upgrade my video
driver and test everything.

>> 3) compizsettings does not compile with Sun Studio (although compiz does
>>    compile with it okay).  You might want to mention that you need to
>>    make sure CC=gcc to build these.
> This is false, with my patch for compiz-settings is compiling fine with 
> Sun Studio.

When I try to compile with Sun Studio I get this error:

"/usr/include/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtktextbuffer.h", line 52: warning: enumerator
value overflows INT_MAX (2147483647)
"/usr/include/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtktextbuffer.h", line 53: warning: enumerator
value overflows INT_MAX (2147483647)
"/usr/include/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtktextbuffer.h", line 55: warning: enumerator
value overflows INT_MAX (2147483647)
"eggcellrendererkeys.c", line 497: warning: argument #6 is incompatible
with prototype:
         prototype: pointer to void :
"/usr/include/glib-2.0/gobject/gsignal.h", line 221
         argument : pointer to function(void) returning void
"eggaccelerators.c", line 365: warning: enum type mismatch: op "="
"eggaccelerators.c", line 581: warning: enum type mismatch: op "="
"gconf-backend.c", line 199: syntax error before or at: {
"gconf-backend.c", line 218: cannot recover from previous errors
cc: acomp failed for main.c
make[2]: *** [main.o] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory
`/export/home/brianca/compiz/compizsettings-trunk/src'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory
`/export/home/brianca/compiz/compizsettings-trunk'
make: *** [all] Error 2

--

Seems to be mad about the fact that the all_other_extensions_exist ()
function being defined in another function.  Also the find_position
and loop_through_active functions and entry_to_plugin_path in
functions.c have the same problem.

Maybe I'm using an old version of Sun Studio or something?  Do I need
a patch to be able to compile code like this?  When I run "cc -V" I
see:

cc: Sun C 5.8 Patch 121016-02 2006/03/31
usage: cc [ options] files.  Use 'cc -flags' for details

Builds okay for me with gcc, though.

>>    At first I grabbed the SFEgit spec file and started building it
>>    since you mention "git" in this section.  SFEgit has a lot of
>>    dependencies and after building them I found compile problems trying
>>    to build SFEgit.
>
> Worked fine for me and Laca (at least). email us the compile problems.

Yes, problem was that it was failing building the manpage.  Laca
provided help on this.  Thanks.

>> 6) Usability problems (for me anyway)
>>
>>    - When I run thunderbird and click on the "Compose" button or
>>      respond to an email, the window that pops up is black and has
>>      nothing in it - the window that comes up is useless.  It's not
>>      really possible for me to run compiz all the time if I can't
>>      write emails when running with it.
>
> This might be bug in the nvidia driver. (I don't have that problem)
> Try the latest driver.

Upgrading the video driver didn't help.  I noticed the problem using
thunderbird build 59, so I tried upgrading to thunderbird build 60 to
see if that might help, but no luck.  I also tried running
/usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird-bin from the command line to see if
any useful error messages get echoed to the screen when the problem
happens.  Unfortunately not.

I only see this problem running compiz.  If I run thunderbird without
running compiz, then it works fine.

I do notice that when I run ldd /usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird-bin
I see these lines:

         libXrender.so.1 (RENDER_0.0) =>  (version not found)
         libXrender.so.1 (RENDER_0.1) =>  (version not found)
         libXrender.so.1 (RENDER_0.6) =>  (version not found)
         libXrender.so.1 (RENDER_0.0) =>  (version not found)
         libXrender.so.1 (RENDER_0.1) =>  (version not found)
         libXrender.so.1 (RENDER_0.2) =>  (version not found)
         libXrender.so.1 (RENDER_0.4) =>  (version not found)
         libXrender.so.1 (RENDER_0.5) =>  (version not found)
         libXrender.so.1 (RENDER_0.6) =>  (version not found)
         libXrender.so.1 (RENDER_0.6) =>  (version not found)

Do you see these also?  Perhaps this is the problem?  I wonder if
recompiling some base libraries might help.  You say you don't
see this problem, so perhaps the issue goes away when using newer
versions of Nevada than build 55?

>>    - When I right click I get a neat zoom feature, but I can't seem
>>      to get any right click menus, like the ones I often use when
>>      using Thunderbird.  How do you get to the right-click menu?
>
> Use compiz-settings and disable the Zoom plugin

Still this seems a serious usability issue to me.  All right click
menus don't work if you turn this feature on?

I'd think the feature shouldn't consume the mouse-click and allow the
menu to pop-up even if it also causes a zoom.  Also would be nice if
you could configure which mouse-button to use so you could use the
one you want.

>>    - The animation when you move windows around makes me feel
>>      seasink.  Which configuration option turns this off?
> Disable the Wobbly plugin (with compiz-settings) and enjoy a seasickness 
> free desktop ;)

Much better, thanks.

>>    - If you wanted compiz to run all the time without having to
>>      "gtk-window-decorator --replace & compiz --replace gconf &"
>>      all the time, how would you do so?  
>
> Add it to your session instead of metacity but although I've been 
> running it for a week
> on one of my machine I wouldn't advise it.

Might be nice to mention this step in your blog in case people want
to add it to their default session.

I'm curious to hear why you wouldn't advise using compiz on a regular
basis.  What bugs or problems make it bad idea to use?

Brian