Let’s enable the desktop cube in Compiz, this tutorial will show you how:

From CCSM under Desktop click to enable Desktop Cube (and then disable Desktop Wall), and enable Rotate Cube. Under Effects enable Cube Reflection and Deformation (and resolve the conflict by disabling Next Slide) and 3D Windows.

Now we click on Desktop Cube and then the Appearance tab, and click on Skydome (Skydome is the image displayed behind the cube, on the “sky”). From here we click on the first checkbox to enable the background, and then Skydome Image to browse to the picture we want to use. Note – if you click “Animate Skydome” the background image will rotate when you rotate the cube.

Going then to Cube Reflection and Deformation and choose Appearance. Here we’ll set the top and bottom images, or “caps.” Just click New and browse to the images wanted, and you can then remove the default images by clicking on them then clicking Delete. Then we choose the Reflection tab and click on the Reflection Mode, then Distance. Next we choose the Deformation tab and then Sphere for a spherical “cube,” Cylinder for a cylindrical one, and None for a normal cube. Note – Aspect ratio will make your sphere look more round or more squished (oblong?) depending on what you put there.

CTRL-ALT-leftmousebutton is the default for rotating your sphere.

Next we will install the compiz-fusion-plugins-unsupported. Open up a terminal and enter the following command:

$ sudo aptitude install compiz-fusion-plugins-unsupported

When that is done enter CCSM and enable Snow under Extras, for a little freezing fun. Super/Windowskey-f3 starts and stops the snow falling.

Have fun!