| Compiz | |
|---|---|
 | |
 Screenshot showing the Cube plugin for Compiz onFedora | |
| Developers | David Reveman, Sam Spilsbury, Danny Baumann, Dennis Kasprzyk, Daniel van Vugt |
| Initial release | 2006; 19 years ago (2006) |
| Stable release | 0.9.14.2[1]  / 22 August 2022 |
| Repository | |
| Written in | C,C++,Python |
| Operating system | Unix-like withX11 |
| Type | X window manager |
| License | GPL, core:MIT license |
| Website | launchpad |
Compiz (/ˈkɒmpɪz/) is acompositing window manager for theX Window System, using3D graphics hardware to create fastcompositing desktop effects for window management. Effects, such as a minimization animation or a cube workspace, are implemented as loadable plugins. Because it conforms to theICCCM conventions, Compiz can be used as a substitute for the defaultMutter orMetacity, when usingGNOME Panel, orKWin inKDE Plasma Workspaces. Internally Compiz uses theOpenGL library as the interface to the graphics hardware.
Initially, Compiz only worked with 3D hardware supported byXgl. MostNVIDIA andAMD graphics cards are known to work with Compiz on Xgl. Since May 22, 2006 Compiz works on the standardX.Org Server, by usingAIGLX. BesidesIntel GMA graphics cards, AIGLX also supports using AMD graphics cards (includingR300 and newer cards) using the open-sourceradeon driver which supportsGLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap since fall 2006.
NVIDIA's binary drivers (since Version 1.0-9629[2]) supportGLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap on standard X.Org server;AMD's binary drivers do since version 8.42.[3]
By the early 2000's, bothATI andNvidia drivers became increasingly common onLinux. AdvancedOpenGL development was no longer restricted to expensiveUNIXworkstations. Around the same time,Xgl,Xegl andAIGLX gaveXorg the possibility of using OpenGL for transformation and effects on windows surfaces.
With foundations finally available,xcompmgr pioneered the features of acompositing window manager.
An effort called Luminocity began with someGNOME developers to make use of recent developments.[4] In March 2005, the Luminocity project already featured effects like "wobbly windows", "physics models for window moving", "live updating workspace switcher" and "alpha compositing".[5]
Given Luminocity was mostly a prototype, its development soon was abandoned, but some of its effects and behaviors were later implemented by Compiz.
The first version of Compiz was released asfree software byNovell (SUSE) no later than February 2006[6] in the wake of the (also new)Xgl. It was one of the earliest compositing window managers for X.
In March 2006 Compiz was ported toAIGLX byRed Hat.[7]
Beryl was the project name for thequinnstorm branch of Compiz, announced on September 19, 2006 after Compiz developer Quinn Storm and the development team decided that the fork had come too far from the original Compiz started byNovell (compiz-vanilla). After the Novell XGL/Compiz team (mostly David Reveman) refused the proposition to merge the Quinnstorm changes with compiz-vanilla, the decision was made to make a real differentiation.[8]
Among the differences to Compiz, Beryl had a new window decorator named Emerald based oncgwd along with a theme manager calledemerald-theme-manager, used a flat-file backend instead ofgconf, and had noGNOME dependencies.
On March 30, 2007, discussions between the Beryl and Compiz communities led to a merger of the two communities which results in two new software packages:
Outcomes include plans to fund a code review panel consisting of the best developers from each community who will see that any code included in a release package meets the highest standards and is suitable for distributionin an officially supported package.[10][11][12]
In the fourth quarter of 2008, two separate branches of Compiz were created:compiz++ andNOMAD; compiz++ was geared toward the separation ofcompositing andOpenGL layers for the rendering of the window manager without compositing effects, and the port fromC toC++ programming language.[13] NOMAD was geared towards the improvement ofremote desktop performance for Compiz installations.[14]
On February 2, 2009 a conference call was held between developers ofCompiz,Compiz++,NOMAD andCompiz Fusion where it was decided to merge the projects into a unified project, simply named Compiz, with a unified roadmap.[15][16][17]
On July 4, 2010, Sam Spilsbury, lead Compiz developer, announced the release of Compiz 0.9.0 with a new API, rewritten in C++.[18]
Canonical Ltd. hired Spilsbury to further develop Compiz forUbuntu in October 2010.[19] Since then Compiz development mostly coincides with Ubuntu development. Main development moved to Canonical'sLaunchpad service.[20] The 0.9.x versions up to 0.9.5 were seen as unstable/beta software.[21] With version 0.9.6 in progress, Canonical hired developer Daniel van Vugt to work on Compiz full-time. While 0.9.6 never officially released,[22] Compiz 0.9.7.0 was released a month ahead of enterprise-targetedUbuntu 12.04 LTS (Long Term Support) and declared stable.[23] A few days before the official release of Ubuntu 12.04 a new development branch, 0.9.8, was created[24] in preparation forUbuntu 12.10.[25] For Compiz version 0.9.8 development has moved to a new Launchpad page.[26]
In November 2012, Spilsbury announced that he had left Canonical[27] and stated he had no plans to port Compiz toWayland. A small team continues to work on Compiz with version 0.9.13 being the focus of development as of July 2016.[28]
A group[29] forked the Compiz 0.8 series code base and modernized it and maintains it as of 2025.[30]
Almost all available Compiz features – except translucency, dimming, and desaturation – are delivered using plugins.
Compiz plugins include the cube effect,Alt-Tab application-switching with live previews or icons, and a feature similar tomacOS'sMission Control. TheComposite extension to X is used, as is theOpenGL extensionGLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap.[31]
The Compiz project categorizes the plugins into four main groups: Main,[32] Extra,[33] Unsupported,[34] and Experimental.[35]
Window managers use a program called awindow decorator to provide the window borders with the usual minimize, maximize and close buttons. Unlike many window managers which have only one window decorator, Compiz users have a choice of three:
Compiz or Beryl have usually been deployed on Linux and otherX11-basedUnix-like platforms together withGNOME 2 andKDE 3. Since version 4.2, however, KDE's ownKWin ships with capabilities similar to Compiz.[37] So, Compiz is not usually deployed with recentPlasma Workspaces versions.
GNOME version 3.0 usesGNOME Shell which is built as a plugin to theMutter compositing window manager.[38] This means Compiz cannot be used in conjunction with GNOME Shell.[39]
Citing a lack of maintenance on the part of the Compiz developers, Fedora removed Compiz from the Fedora repositories from Fedora 17;[40][41] however Compiz has been reinstated in the Fedora repositories since Fedora 18.[42] An officialMATE spin which includes Compiz has been available since Fedora 19.[43][44]
Compiz was dropped from theDebian repositories from Debian 7 (Wheezy) onwards in August 2013 due to broken packages and a lack of upstream development on the part of the Compiz developers.[45][46][47]Compiz was reintroduced into Debian in December 2016 by the Hypra.fr Team.[48]
Compiz was dropped from theArch Linux repositories in May 2013.[49] Compiz can still be installed from packages available in theArch User Repository.
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS and later included Compiz in theuniverse repository. A limited version was included by default as "Desktop Effects" in Ubuntu 7.04. From Ubuntu 7.10 onwards, Compiz was enabled by default.[50] In 2010Canonical released theirUnity interface which is written as a plugin for Compiz.[51][52]
Early Compiz reviews were mostly favorable praising its performance,[53] beauty[54] and novelty value.[55] It was included inUbuntu 6.06 repositories to allow easy installation and was, as of 2021, the only time an Ubuntu release was postponed.
Other projects likeMetisse andProject Looking Glass were developed around the same time, but none became as known or widely deployed as Compiz. Other window managers likeGNOME Shell andKWin would later also implement compositing effects.Windows’s look and feel partially imitated Compiz’s most popular look and feel in the next big release (Vista).
The development ofWayland around 2010 merged the functions of compositor and graphics server on the same program, a move that would eventually obsolete separate window managers and compositors. Distributions which still included it by default usually enabled just a few useful plugins and disabled the more "blingy" ones. Also, distributions increasingly began includingKDE andGNOME with their default window managers. The last Ubuntu version to include Compiz to implement itsUnity desktop manager wasUbuntu 16.04. After that, its development became mostly stagnant.
…I was also hired by Canonical Ltd.…
The latest stable release of Compiz is 0.8.8. A C++ rewrite has been announced on December 24, 2009 and is now released as a beta version (0.9.5.x).
Today was my last day at Canonical.
gnome-shell is set up as a Mutter plugin that is largely written in JavaScript
The version of Unity that will be released in 11.04 is definitely implemented as plugin(s) in Compiz.
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