[wplug] compositing in metacity

[Patrick Wagstrom]

Hey folks,

Found out about a nifty trick this morning, that could benefit lots of folks
who have machines with either no-3d acceleration, or for one reason or
another cannot run 3d accelerated drivers (dislike non-free drivers, lack of
support for xrandr1.2 etc).  If you're using GNOME, Metacity has some of the
compositing manager features built into it that it can offload to the CPU.
This doesn't give you everything, much of the glitz you see with composited
desktops is the result of compiz plugins, but it does give some degree of
transparent windows, shaped windows, shadows on windows, lets you run avant
window navagator, previews in alt-tab, etc.

Anyway, run gconf-editor, go to apps->metacity->general and check the box to
activate the compositing manager.

Shameless stolen from:
http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2008/11/14/metacity-compositing-effects-in-ubuntu-810/

A nice side effect is that remote windows now don't need to be redrawn when
you move stuff over them, reducing network load too.

Patrick Wagstrom
Email/gTalk: patrick at wagstrom.net
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