Compiz
Gnome Shell – Move Over Compiz, or Not?
Dec 19th
Gnome is moving ahead making great progress. Every successive release gets better. A new addition to Gnome is a build in shell supporting compositing. Install it in Ubuntu with:
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell
Then implement it the same way you implement compiz:
sudo gnome-shell --replace
You may want to have the fusion-icon open in the system tray to conveniently switch back to compiz if you want. Install the fusion icon with:
sudo apt-get install fusion-icon
Gnome shell is interesting. Clearly there are three ways to use Gnome at the moment; default, gnome-shell, and Compiz. The default shell is good for a server environment, but with the stability of the alternate shells there is no reason not to use Compiz or the now available Gnome shell.
Windows 7 – Thoughts and Considerations
Oct 20th
Frankly Windows is pretty. I like Windows, the only things that really annoys me is viruses. Because of the thousands of viruses and attacks that can be performed, antivirus software is an absolute requirement of a Windows powered computer. Antivirus software takes a lot of power, because it is constantly scanning incoming files, and making sure files on the system are clean. Also antispyware software is a requirement. This software will make sure that files are not changing on the system, especially critical system files that should never change. These two applications are constantly running in the background and draining resources. These two types of applications are required because there are some 25,000 viruses for Windows based machines.
Windows 7
On the other hand Linux is getting better and better. There are only a handful of viruses, and typical website attacks are non functional most of the time. In other words Linux based machines are relatively immune to the vast majority of Windows attacks. This makes antivirus software not necessary. This also makes use of anti spyware software a moot consideration. If you like the look of Windows you can make Linux look comparable. Overall the only reason to use WIndows is for graphics card compatibility for gaming. Also for iTunes! But there are even alternative for iTunes on Linux. I will try and use Windows 7. I purchased a Vaio P; it came with Vista and if Sony offers me a free upgrade I will definitely install it over XP. Ive heard that it is less bloated that Vista, and it will be clearly more functional than XP. I think it will be interesting, and I look forward to trying to get my hands on it. Don’t get me wrong I still think you can do much more in a Linux PC. MythTV, and the way VirtualBox works are much better than comparable functionality on a straight Windows PC. Plus there is Compiz 
The 3D desktop effects of Windows, even the aftermarket apps like Deskspaces, are not comparable to the degree of seamless integration achieved on Linux.
VirtualBox 3.0.4 DHCP Hard Lock
Aug 22nd
As previously posted there is an ongoing issue with vboxnet0. It is the apparent cause of a system wide hard lock. I don’t think its a hardware issue, although it may end up being one. I hope not, therefore I will be investigating all possible software causes. Given the complexity of my system if can be many many things. It could be the bios, and general motherboard instability; and virtualbox has reported stability issues. It could be compiz, or the the binary nvidia drivers. I will know more soon.
Video of Compiz – Ubuntu, OSX, MythTV
Jul 21st
The video is a little choppy, my bad, this is how recordmydesktop works. I used mencoder to resize the video and convert it to mpg.
Wmctrl Recap – Placing Windows Automatically on Boot – Compiz Viewports
Jul 13th
Wmctrl allows you to move windows around the screen, resize windows and other options. For a full list of options use: wmctrl --help For compiz, the desktop is extended in either/and the x y directions. For example if you have 4 sides to the cube your x direction is extended 4 times. If you desktop is 1920 wide, then the second viewport, or the second side of the cube starts at x position 1921. To move a windows to the second cube face you want to relocate it to x position 1921. The -e option of wmctrl does exactly this. Use -r to select the window that you want to automatically relocate. An example of the code to use in a startup script is as follows. This code snippet replaces mythtv to the second face of my desktop cube. wmctrl -r "mythfrontend.real" -e 0,1921,0,1920,1080
You can see mythtv on the second face of the cube.
Rock Your Desktop – Ubuntu, Windows, MAC, MythTV – Compiz Tweak Fest
Jul 7th
Step 1 is to enlarge your desktop to have a couple of viewports. I figured I’ll go through it step by step including the easy ones. Here comes a few posts/howtos with screenies.
Open the Ubuntu preferences menu
If you do not have the compiz config control panel install it with: sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager In the control panel select the general options button.
The general options button in the compiz config control panel
In this panel select the desktop size tab.
the desktop size tab in the compiz config control panel
Three, four, five viewports. The sky is the limit. Obviously this is all dependent on a properly install video driver. You need adequate hardware being a powerful NVIDIA or ATI/AMD video card or embedded chipset. I recommend installing the up to date drivers, but it is easiest to just select your corresponding driver from the hardware drivers configuration menu.
The ubuntu hardware drivers control panel
In this control panel you can install the automatically detect drivers for your video hardware.
Select various hardware drivers