compositing window manager A compositing window manager, or compositor, is a window manager that provides applications with an off-screen data buffer, buffer for each window. The window manager Compositing, composites the window buffers into an image representing the screen ...

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wit ...

3D graphics 3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for the ...

compositing Compositing is the process or technique of combining visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live-action shooting for compositing is variously ca ...

ICCCM In computing, the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual (ICCCM or I39L short for "I", 39 letters and "L")Mutter or

Metacity Metacity was the default window manager used by the GNOME 2 desktop environment until it was replaced by Mutter in GNOME 3. It is still used by GNOME Flashback, a session for GNOME 3 that provides a similar user experience to the Gnome 2.x serie ...

, when using

GNOME Panel GNOME Panel is a highly configurable taskbar for GNOME. It formed a core part of the desktop in GNOME 1 and GNOME 2. It has been replaced in GNOME 3 by default with GNOME Shell, which only works with the Mutter window manager. There are many ''a ...

, or

KWin KWin is a window manager for the X Window System and a Wayland compositor. It is released as a part of KDE Plasma 5, for which it is the default window manager. KWin can also be used on its own or with other desktop environments. KWin can be c ...

in

KDE Plasma Workspaces KDE Plasma 5 is the fifth and current generation of the graphical workspaces environment created by KDE primarily for Linux systems. KDE Plasma 5 is the successor of KDE Plasma 4 and was first released on 15 July 2014. It includes a new default ...

. Internally Compiz uses the

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...

library as the interface to the graphics hardware.

Hardware requirements

Initially, Compiz only worked with 3D hardware supported by

Xgl Xgl is an obsolete display server implementation supporting the X Window System protocol designed to take advantage of modern graphics cards via their OpenGL drivers, layered on top of OpenGL. It supports hardware acceleration of all X, OpenGL an ...

. Most

NVIDIA Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

and

ATI Ati or ATI may refer to: * Ati people, a Negrito ethnic group in the Philippines **Ati language (Philippines), the language spoken by this people group ** Ati-Atihan festival, an annual celebration held in the Philippines *Ati language (China), a ...

graphics cards are known to work with Compiz on Xgl. Since May 22, 2006 Compiz works on the standard

X.Org Server X.Org Server is the free and open-source implementation of the X Window System display server stewarded by the X.Org Foundation. Implementations of the client-side X Window System protocol exist in the form of ''X11 libraries'', which serve a ...

, by using

AIGLX Accelerated Indirect GLX ("AIGLX") is an Open-source software, open source project founded by Red Hat and the Fedora (operating system), Fedora community, led by Kristian Høgsberg, to allow accelerated indirect GLX rendering capabilities to t ...

. Besides

Intel GMA The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) is a series of integrated graphics processors introduced in 2004 by Intel, replacing the earlier Intel Extreme Graphics series and being succeeded by the Intel HD and Iris Graphics series. This series t ...

graphics cards, AIGLX also supports using AMD graphics cards (including

R300 The R300 GPU, introduced in August 2002 and developed by ATI Technologies, is its third generation of GPU used in '' Radeon'' graphics cards. This GPU features 3D acceleration based upon Direct3D 9.0 and OpenGL 2.0, a major improvement in featur ...

and newer cards) using the open-source driver which supports since fall 2006. NVIDIA's binary drivers (since Version 1.0-9629) support on standard X.Org server; ATI/AMD's binary drivers do since version 8.42.

History

By the early 2000's, both

ATI Ati or ATI may refer to: * Ati people, a Negrito ethnic group in the Philippines **Ati language (Philippines), the language spoken by this people group ** Ati-Atihan festival, an annual celebration held in the Philippines *Ati language (China), a ...

and

Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

drivers became increasingly common on

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

. Advanced

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...

development was no longer restricted to expensive

UNIX Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

workstations A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

. Around the same time,

Xgl Xgl is an obsolete display server implementation supporting the X Window System protocol designed to take advantage of modern graphics cards via their OpenGL drivers, layered on top of OpenGL. It supports hardware acceleration of all X, OpenGL an ...

,

Xegl Xgl is an obsolete display server implementation supporting the X Window System protocol designed to take advantage of modern graphics cards via their OpenGL drivers, layered on top of OpenGL. It supports hardware acceleration of all X, OpenGL an ...

and

AIGLX Accelerated Indirect GLX ("AIGLX") is an Open-source software, open source project founded by Red Hat and the Fedora (operating system), Fedora community, led by Kristian Høgsberg, to allow accelerated indirect GLX rendering capabilities to t ...

gave

Xorg X.Org Server is the free and open-source implementation of the X Window System display server stewarded by the X.Org Foundation. Implementations of the client-side X Window System protocol exist in the form of ''X11 libraries'', which serve a ...

the possibility of using OpenGL for transformation and effects on windows surfaces. With foundations finally available, xcompmgr pioneered the features of a

compositing window manager A compositing window manager, or compositor, is a window manager that provides applications with an off-screen data buffer, buffer for each window. The window manager Compositing, composites the window buffers into an image representing the screen ...

.

Luminocity

An effort called Luminocity began with some

GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...

developers to make use of recent developments. In March 2005, the Luminocity project already featured effects like "wobbly windows", "physics models for window moving", "live updating workspace switcher" and "alpha compositing". Given Luminocity was mostly a prototype, its development soon was abandoned, but some of its effects and behaviors were later implemented by Compiz.

Compiz

The first version of Compiz was released as

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

by

Novell Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare. Under the lead ...

(

SUSE SUSE ( , ) is a German-based multinational open-source software company that develops and sells Linux products to business customers. Founded in 1992, it was the first company to market Linux for enterprise. It is the developer of SUSE Linux Ent ...

) no later than February 2006 in the wake of the (also new)

Xgl Xgl is an obsolete display server implementation supporting the X Window System protocol designed to take advantage of modern graphics cards via their OpenGL drivers, layered on top of OpenGL. It supports hardware acceleration of all X, OpenGL an ...

. It was one of the earliest compositing window managers for X. In March 2006 Compiz was ported to

AIGLX Accelerated Indirect GLX ("AIGLX") is an Open-source software, open source project founded by Red Hat and the Fedora (operating system), Fedora community, led by Kristian Høgsberg, to allow accelerated indirect GLX rendering capabilities to t ...

by

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide. Red Hat has become ass ...

.

Beryl

Beryl was the project name for the ''quinnstorm'' 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 by

Novell Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare. Under the lead ...

(). 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. Among the differences to Compiz, Beryl had a new window decorator named Emerald based on

cgwd Compiz () is a compositing window manager for the X Window System, using 3D graphics hardware to create fast compositing desktop effects for window management. Effects, such as a minimization animation or a cube workspace, are implemented as loa ...

along with a theme manager called , used a flat file backend instead of

gconf GConf was a system used by the GNOME desktop environment for storing configuration settings for the desktop and applications. It is similar to the Windows Registry. It was deprecated as part of the GNOME 3 transition. Migration to its replacemen ...

, and had no

GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...

dependencies.

Merger of the Compiz and Beryl communities

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: * Compiz, (also Compiz-core) which contains only the core functionality of Compiz and base plugins * Compiz Fusion, consisting of the plugins, decorators, settings tools and related applications from the Beryl and Compiz communities. Compiz Fusion concentrates on installation, configuration and additional plugins to add to the core functionalities of Compiz. 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 distribution in an officially supported package.

Further branches

In the fourth quarter of 2008, two separate branches of Compiz were created: ''compiz++'' and ''NOMAD''; compiz++ was geared toward the separation of

compositing Compositing is the process or technique of combining visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live-action shooting for compositing is variously ca ...

and

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...

layers for the rendering of the window manager without compositing effects, and the port from C to

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

programming language. NOMAD was geared towards the improvement of

remote desktop In computing, the term remote desktop refers to a software- or operating system feature that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely off of one system (usually a PC, but the concept applies equally to a server or a ...

performance for Compiz installations.

Merger of the Compiz branches

On February 2, 2009 a conference call was held between developers of Compiz, Compiz++, NOMAD and Compiz Fusion where it was decided to merge the projects into a unified project, simply named Compiz, with a unified roadmap.

Compiz 0.9 series

On July 4, 2010, Sam Spilsbury, lead Compiz developer, announced the release of Compiz 0.9.0 with a new API, rewritten in C++.

Canonical Ltd. Canonical Ltd. is a UK-based privately held computer software company founded and funded by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth to market commercial support and related services for Ubuntu and related projects. Canonical employs staff ...

hired Spilsbury to further develop Compiz for

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: ''Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All the ...

in October 2010. Since then Compiz development mostly coincides with Ubuntu development. Main development moved to Canonical's Launchpad service. The 0.9.x versions up to 0.9.5 were seen as unstable/

beta software A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

. 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, Compiz 0.9.7.0 was released a month ahead of enterprise-targeted Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (''Long Term Support'') and declared stable. A few days before the official release of Ubuntu 12.04 a new development branch, 0.9.8, was created in preparation for Ubuntu 12.10. For Compiz version 0.9.8 development has moved to a new Launchpad page. In November 2012, Spilsbury announced that he had left Canonical and stated he had no plans to port Compiz to Wayland. A small team continues to work on Compiz with version 0.9.13 being the focus of development as of July 2016.

Compiz Reloaded

A group forked the Compiz 0.8 series code base and modernized it and maintains it as of 2019.

Features

Almost all available Compiz features – except translucency, dimming, and desaturation – are delivered using plugins. Compiz plugins include the cube effect,

Alt-Tab is the common name for a keyboard shortcut that has been in Microsoft Windows since Windows 2.0 (1987). This shortcut switches between application-level windows without using the mouse; hence it was named ''Task Switcher'' (''Flip'' in Windows ...

application-switching with live previews or icons, and a feature similar to

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

's Mission Control. The Composite extension to X is used, as is the

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...

extension . The Compiz project categorizes the plugins into four main groups: Main, Extra, Unsupported, and Experimental. Window managers use a program called a

window decorator In computing, a window is a graphical control element. It consists of a visual area containing some of the graphical user interface of the program it belongs to and is framed by a window decoration. It usually has a rectangular shape that can ove ...

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: * ''gtk-window-decorator'' uses either a basic

cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

-based rendering engine or can use

Metacity Metacity was the default window manager used by the GNOME 2 desktop environment until it was replaced by Mutter in GNOME 3. It is still used by GNOME Flashback, a session for GNOME 3 that provides a similar user experience to the Gnome 2.x serie ...

themes.

* ''kde-window-decorator'' uses native

KWin KWin is a window manager for the X Window System and a Wayland compositor. It is released as a part of KDE Plasma 5, for which it is the default window manager. KWin can also be used on its own or with other desktop environments. KWin can be c ...

themes. * ''Emerald'', a custom decorator with its own theme format that has been ported to Compiz. It used to be Beryl's default decorator.

Deployments

Compiz or Beryl have usually been deployed on Linux and other

X11 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...

-based

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

platforms together with

GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...

2 and

KDE 3 K Desktop Environment 3 is the third series of releases of the K Desktop Environment (after that called ''KDE Software Compilation''). There are six major releases in this series. After the release of KDE 4, version 3.5 was forked into the Trinit ...

. Since version 4.2, however, KDE's own

KWin KWin is a window manager for the X Window System and a Wayland compositor. It is released as a part of KDE Plasma 5, for which it is the default window manager. KWin can also be used on its own or with other desktop environments. KWin can be c ...

ships with capabilities similar to Compiz. As such, Compiz is not usually deployed with recent Plasma Workspaces versions.

GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...

version 3.0 uses

GNOME Shell GNOME Shell is the graphical shell of the GNOME desktop environment starting with version 3, which was released on April 6, 2011. It provides basic functions like launching applications, switching between windows and is also a widget engine. ...

which is built as a plugin to the Mutter compositing window manager. This means Compiz cannot be used in conjunction with GNOME Shell. Citing a lack of maintenance on the part of the Compiz developers, Fedora removed Compiz from the Fedora repositories from Fedora 17 however Compiz has been reinstated in the Fedora repositories since Fedora 18. An official

MATE Mate may refer to: Science * Mate, one of a pair of animals involved in: ** Mate choice, intersexual selection ** Mating * Multi-antimicrobial extrusion protein, or MATE, an efflux transporter family of proteins Person or title * Friendship ...

spin which includes Compiz has been available since Fedora 19. Compiz was dropped from the

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of D ...

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. Compiz was reintroduced into Debian in December 2016 by the Hypra.fr Team. Compiz was dropped from the

Arch Linux Arch Linux () is an independently developed, x86-64 general-purpose Linux distribution that strives to provide the latest stable versions of most software by following a Rolling release, rolling-release model. The default installation is a minim ...

repositories in May 2013. Compiz can still be installed from packages available in the

Arch User Repository Arch Linux () is an independently developed, x86-64 general-purpose Linux distribution that strives to provide the latest stable versions of most software by following a rolling-release model. The default installation is a minimal base system, ...

.

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Ubuntu releases are made semiannually by Canonical Ltd, the developers of the Ubuntu operating system, using the year and month of the release as a version number. The first Ubuntu release, for example, was Ubuntu 4.10 and was released on 20 Oct ...

and later included Compiz in the ''universe'' 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. In 2010

Canonical The adjective canonical is applied in many contexts to mean "according to the canon" the standard, rule or primary source that is accepted as authoritative for the body of knowledge or literature in that context. In mathematics, "canonical example ...

released their

Unity Unity may refer to: Buildings * Unity Building, Oregon, Illinois, US; a historic building * Unity Building (Chicago), Illinois, US; a skyscraper * Unity Buildings, Liverpool, UK; two buildings in England * Unity Chapel, Wyoming, Wisconsin, US; a h ...

interface which is written as a plugin for Compiz.

Reception and impact

Early compiz reviews were mostly favorable praising its performance, beauty and novelty value. It was included in Ubuntu 6.06 repositories to allow easy installation and was, as of 2021, the only time an Ubuntu release was postponed. Other projects like

Metisse Metisse is a 2.5D X window manager with many features that set it apart from the traditional 3D "cube" workspace. Windows can be turned three-dimensionally in any direction, enabling the user to fit more windows onto a screen, and they can be sc ...

and

Project Looking Glass Project Looking Glass is a now inactive free software project under the GPL to create an innovative 3D desktop environment for Linux, Solaris, and Windows. It was sponsored by Sun Microsystems. Looking Glass is programmed in the Java language us ...

were developed around the same time, but none became as known or widely deployed as Compiz. Other window managers like

GNOME Shell GNOME Shell is the graphical shell of the GNOME desktop environment starting with version 3, which was released on April 6, 2011. It provides basic functions like launching applications, switching between windows and is also a widget engine. ...

and

KWin KWin is a window manager for the X Window System and a Wayland compositor. It is released as a part of KDE Plasma 5, for which it is the default window manager. KWin can also be used on its own or with other desktop environments. KWin can be c ...

would later also implement compositing effects. The development of Wayland 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 including

KDE KDE is an international Free software movement, free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-know ...

and

GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...

with their default window managers. The last Ubuntu version to include Compiz to implement its

Unity Unity may refer to: Buildings * Unity Building, Oregon, Illinois, US; a historic building * Unity Building (Chicago), Illinois, US; a skyscraper * Unity Buildings, Liverpool, UK; two buildings in England * Unity Chapel, Wyoming, Wisconsin, US; a h ...

desktop manager was

Ubuntu 16.04 Ubuntu releases are made semiannually by Canonical Ltd, the developers of the Ubuntu operating system, using the year and month of the release as a version number. The first Ubuntu release, for example, was Ubuntu 4.10 and was released on 20 Oct ...

. After that, its development became mostly stagnant.

Some Compiz effects (0.8.5)

Burn effect.png, Burn effect Dream effect.png, Dream effect Explode effect.png, Explode effect Magic Lamp effect.png, Magic Lamp effect Maximized window deformation.png, Deformation of maximized window

References

External links

Compiz
on

Launchpad A launch pad is an above-ground platform from which rocket- missiles or space launch vehicles take off vertically. Launch pad may also refer to: Computing * Launchpad (macOS), an application launcher introduced in Mac OS X Lion * Launch Pad (s ...

* (unmaintained) * {{freedesktop.org 2006 software 3D GUIs Compositing window managers Free software programmed in C Free X window managers Freedesktop.org Linux windowing system-related software Software using the MIT license

Hardware requirements

History

Luminocity

Compiz

Beryl

Merger of the Compiz and Beryl communities

Further branches

Merger of the Compiz branches

Compiz 0.9 series

Compiz Reloaded

Features

Deployments

Reception and impact

Some Compiz effects (0.8.5)

See also

References

External links