5 Useless Compiz Fusion Effects
Compiz Fusion is the best thing that happened to Linux desktop user experience yet. In the world of Linux bashers who argue that Linux is not quite ready for home users; compiz is one of the few things that really set Linux apart from other OS with major market share. It can give you good brownie points when you are trying to compare desktop effects with non-linux user friends, and it is truly exclusive to Linux OS. However, as it is with most other fancy desktop user interface (Aero for Vista, Aqua for OS X), the excitement quickly wears off after the first week or so; and those nifty little effects are not so awesome anymore. I don’t know about you, but square 3D workspace or wobbly windows does not add any level of productivity to my daily computer usage. If anything, it makes using computer much more distracting. Some effects are actually useful but most effects are not. It’s true, we can easily turn off any desktop effects we don’t like to use and some of these effects are highly customizable. Still I feel we need to make a list of “WTF, why would anyone want to use this?” effects with Compiz Fusion.
1) Dome sphere mode: Seriously what are we supposed to do with this? Bounce the sphere , while using pidgin? I thought the standard dome effect (albeit nice) was useless enough; but this one beats it fair and square. For more annoyance, try out the cylinder effect.
Video of “Sphere effect” in action:
2) Burning window while minimizing effect: This truly revolutionizes my desktop usage; when I am frustrated with some application; I can just burn the window - over and over again. This could be useful sometimes.
3) Flying Paper-plane window effect: This one actually folds your window in the form of a paper plane and then flies and minimizes to your panel. You have to see it to believe it.
4) Rain Effect: For a very successful dose of distraction use the rain effect. Even better; try watching a movie with rain effect and woobly window, you will never see movies the same way again. I promise you that.
5) Atlantis Plugin: Finally, last but not least, the atlantis plugin. If you want many many sharks dolphins (looking for penguins?) swimming all over your screen in 3D; this my friend is the perfect plugin for you.
Joking aside, Compiz has some really nice features; if you havent tried it yet. You should really try it out. You won’t find this stuff in Mac or Vista. Enjoy and have a great weekend.
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I totally agree with all the 5 of your points! (Having used 2-5 ones before throwing away compiz). Your 3rd point was the funniest, I’ve seen it, one lame effect haha :)
Also, there are too many window switchers in compiz than necessary.
True, Compiz has a few useless effects but the 3D cube is the sine qua non of my desktop.
I often have Firefox (several tabs), Gimp, Gedit (several tabs), a couple of Terminals including a connection to a MySQL database plus several Nautilus windows where I can browse local & remote servers open simultaneously.
The ability to rotate different workspaces is a deal-breaker in this context. The different window switchers save time & trouble and the wobbly effect adds to the feeling of fluidity and dynamism. After Compiz, W*nd*ws is just a visual & functional strait-jacket.
I think the point of Compiz is to somehow waste the unnecessary speed of CPU and graphics cards. People have bought new hardware because of XP or Vista, and they have no use for the hardware as they can’t play their favorite first person shoot-em-ups.
I try to convince people to use their old computers in my blog Lightweight Linux. No more desktop effects!!
sorry but those are dolphins and i see a whale as well. no sharks! (looking at fin formation)
ela corrected it, thanks.
While Desktop Effects from Compiz might seem like it’s a bit too much, I would have to argue that it is an essential tool when switching non-technical users of computers away from Windows or Mac. Compiz’s effects provide the “chrome” of the operating system; while certainly not necessary it is very, very cool and is a surprising element that, as the article writer mentioned, you won’t find on Windows or Mac. That’s important in converting some people who otherwise don’t see the use of it. It’s not the only reason, but it’s definitely one that pulls you in.
Some things are just for fun.
Any tool that allows for experimentation will also allow for frivolity–heck, one of the people who writes a “silly” compiz effect today may someday use the familiarity gained by that silliness to do something that is equally impressive, but also useful. (Remember what they taught you back in anthropology 101: tools start out as toys, so you can experiment with failure just meaning you should try again rather than the tribe going without food for the winter.)
The raindrops effect makes for a great screen saver.
Pretty much the entire set of compiz features are useless IMO, even the 3d cube which all the 13 yr old boys seem to have wet dreams over. I switch workspaces while working a lot and the cube just makes it very annoying!
All these thing just useless bling, like buying a computer based on the “look”. My system could be screwed to a piece of plywood for all I care(and I HAVE done that). I’ll spend $$ on the parts, not the looks.
My system has an X300 PCIe card in it, and the only reason it has that is because it lacks onboard and that was about the cheapest card I could find at the time.
Useless is rather harsh. They’re kiddie kewl.
The 3-d cube, in my experience, has been the single #1 way to get windows users to REALLY understand desktop switching. Just pointing out the little tool on the panel and saying “multiple desktops” nets a blank stare. Grabbing the desktop and twirling the cube…the lightbulb goes on. “Oh…..oooooohhhh, VIRTUAL desktops!”
So you may call it useless, (and yeah, for a captain keyboard commander, it is), but for teaching a windows user something they natively have NEVER seen before, its priceless.
I also use the cube and a few switching effects daily, and have NOT gotten tired of them. The cube is useful to me.
The tube and globe cube though? I’ll grant you that one…but its still tres’ cool to see. :)
Yes, they’re useless.
… but so damn fun, so stfu!
I use the burn animation all the time and find it quite amusing. I agree that some of the other effects aren’t very useful for a productive desktop, but some are nice when playing around.
if you’re gonna link to my video, you might as well link to my comments. I do have a use for Compiz. I work in immersive visualisation, and at present, if the melting pot that is Linux and OSS hadn’t given us compiz, I’d have had to go and work for Apple or Microsoft to achieve the under-the-hood stuff I’m doing.
Yes, but uselessness is really fun!
..sometimes.
What’s wrong with unbounded potential? They are optional features.
Sure the majority of Compiz is useless, but Aero is useless yet a major upsell point for Vista.
Glam sells. It gets plastered all over product advertising. It creates a first impression. Catches the eye.
There are certainly more important aspects like security. Does Vista advertise UAC and the reallity of it’s user annoyance?
No. It diverts to the fact that if you pay extra, you get basic eye-candy. What benefit is frosted glass?
*woooosshhhh*
I’ll give you that plugins like fire minimize is absolutely annoying, but you are completely missing the point of plugins like atlantis and rain drop. They’re simply there to show off what is possible (plus some people like fish swimming around in the cube). Also, in the case of the rain drop plugin, you can even argue that it serves as an example for those aspiring to create new and more useful plugins as it was one of the first plugins released.
Is a hood ornament necessary on a car? It is decoration and it is fun. That’s all it was meant to be. I can’t believe you wrote a whole article condemning perks. Some people like it and if you don’t just turn it off. I bet you would complain about anything like if there was no compiz maybe you would complain that linux is dull compared with Vista.
Well … MUST all use of Linux has to be dull an serous? Come on! Sometimes things are just for fun. Why not? Besides that - it’s just a demonstration of the things Compiz fusion is capable of. Nothing more - nothing less. Maybe someone will arrange some parts and bits of it in a new way and will come with something extremely usefully. Who knows?
You can just switch it off if you don’t like it. And to be to the point - most of these affects are switched off by default after a fresh install. If you don’t like them, then why are you switching them on?
So don’t be so grumpy, have some fun! Life is to short to complain and moan about things that are made to enjoy you or someone else. You are never to old to play around once in a wile…
Well they may not have much practical use but who else can say they have a computer destkop that is a rotating swimming pool filled with paper aeroplanes, sharks and FIRE while they are filling in a spreadsheet?
Nobody but users of the tux that’s who!
Compiz isn’t entirely eye-candy. One feature I find particularly useful is the feature that slightly fades all the non-active windows. I have spent a lot of time tweaking the appearance and functionality of KDE and Compiz to make the best-looking and smoothest UI.
And I have wobbly windows because I just like them. So there.
I guarantee the moment Microsoft releases something based on the 3D desktop research they are doing, it will be possible to implement it in Linux, probably much better as well. Compiz is an excellent platform for the kind of R&D that will help UI improve. Microsoft Research has all kinds of cool and interesting and potentially revolutionary things going on (none of which ever seem to make it into products), but there’s no reason a well-funded R&D firm needs to make these kinds of breakthroughs in usability. The next great idea might come from someone noodling around with Compiz. That’s the beauty of Open Source.
Compiz was not created to use up unused cpu/gpu cycles. It was created to make the desktop and xserver in general scale graphically.
The cube and other similar “effects” are a result of having that new scalability and really taking advantage of it to show off the scalability of composite window managers.
Just the Wobble effect alone makes dragging windows around that much more nice. No more crappy clipping that you get in slow 2D only compositless servers.
Why wouldn’t you want your desktop to look good? I understand if you don’t have the hardware, but seriously, what have you against beauty? Looking at your wife, now I understand.
Tripzero: I have nothing against beauty, but I find especially Wobble a most disturbing effect, just like transparent windows only make reading more difficult. If computer is a tool for you, you expect the UI make working easier. Most of the desktop effects make it more difficult. OS X is pretty and usable, unlike compiz effects.
In fact, I have found it difficult even to move the right window when the effects are turned on. At the moment I’ve changed to LDXE, it is not only pretty and usable but also lightweight.
the rain drop plugin is an accessibility tool as well. it can be configured as a visual notification. i always had programs like Pidgin make a drop or two when I got a new message.
Spacial Recognition. That’s what the cube is all about. Feeling like things have a definite position in space. Makes it easier for many people to know where things are.
I ditched compiz and Gnome/KDE altogether, a long time ago. Compiz for me is just pure fun and at times can be distracting, too.
ahhh just using compiz… no flash is good makes it feel smooth and nice… not distracting… these effects are all for show but no go. I used the wobblies until I felt like I wasnt able to grab my windows properly so I turned it off though one thing I like and always would like are the spaces… combined make it pretty usable and beautiful and no price
Hi,
Just a little question: I am about to buy a new computer and I would really like it to be able to run Compiz Fusion (with ubuntu 8.04).
I understood there are many problems with very new nvidia cards making compiz unusable (I heard that especially minimizing/maximizing windows is extremely slow).
So I thought about buying an older video card (maybe a 7600GT).
Could anyone let me know what card you are using?
Thank you very much,
Yaniv
Hi Yaniv check out http://www.sabayonlinux.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=8773&start=105
I don’t know what graphics card I have in all my computers, but one of them has a Radeon HD 2400 PRO and compiz works like a charm.
Pavs,
Thank you! Great list.
The problem is that there are so many conflicting reports on the net…
Is Sabayon a linux distro? If a card works out of the box with it, what are the chances of it working out of the box with ubuntu?
Thanks again!
Yaniv, yes it should work out of the box perhaps better with ubuntu, sabayon is also a decent Linux distro.
Just know this your are better off with an ATI card, so don’t bother with nvidia cards for now. Even if it’s possible with nvidia cards, from my understanding you have to go through some hacking around to make it work.
Thanks again!
I think I will follow your recommendation and get a Radeon HD 2400 PRO.
BTW - what is your opinion of this: http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=56997
(Are you using a newer/older version?).
Yaniv: he is using Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon which is from 2007, and if I remember correctly, Gutsy didn’t support Compiz out of the box, you had to manually install/configure it. Support with hardy heron (Ubuntu 8.04) is a lot better, you still have to manually “enable” the feature (not on by default) it and will have to download additional packages for more custom control on it’s features (ie, woobly windows).
Compiz has come a long long way, it also works on my ATI Radeon 2000M, which is a very low end laptop video card.
Let me know how it goes. :)