Compiz in VirtualBox

Yes you read that correctly! As of VirtualBox 2.2, Compiz works inside your VM.  It works best provided it’s supported on the host.  All you need to do is update your guest addons with the newest version and enable Hardware Acceleration in the VM settings.  I tested this on a Nvidia GeForce 8400GS M and it works wonderfully.  It’s not even slow.  It’s just as fast as running Compiz natively.  Incredible!  Good work to the VirtualBox devs!

How To: Screenlets bzr

From what I’ve heard, the maintainer of Screenlets was not able to keep working on the project. Now because of the awesomeness of open source someone else has picked up the code and created a new bzr branch. This is a guide on how to install them since there is no repository for them yet.

First, if you have a previous version of Screenlets installed you need to remove it completely.

If you have installed it from a repository:

sudo apt-get remove –purge screenlets

(that’s two hyphens before purge. Doesn’t copy into the terminal correctly )

or if you have built them from source and still have the source directory:

cd /path/to/directory

sudo make uninstall

If you don’t have the source directory anymore:

sudo rm -r /usr/local/share/screenlets*
sudo rm -r /usr/local/bin/screenlets*
sudo rm -r /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/screenlets*
sudo rm -r /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/screenlets*

Also make sure to remove your Screenlets folder in your hidden .config directory

rm -r .config/Screenlets

Now to get installing

The first method will be to build yourself a .deb so if you have to remove it for any reason or just want to be able to manage installed software easier you can.

So let’s install the dependencies

sudo apt-get install dpkg-dev fakeroot build-essential rcs bzr cdbs debhelper python-all-dev

now check out the code

bzr co http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~helder-fraga/screenlets/Screenlets-new

(that should be one line)

You should now have a new directory in your Home called Screenlets-new

Now cd to that directory

cd Screenlets-new/

Now to build the deb

dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot

Now if you open your Home folder you should have a nice deb sitting there for you. Double click it to install.

When I went to install the deb package I got some nasty looking errors and was told that the package failed to install, however the Screenlets still worked. So not sure what that was about.

Quick Way

After checking the code out from bazaar

cd Screenlets-new/

sudo python setup.py install

This will install Screenlets directly into your system without building a deb package. I would recommend trying to build the deb first as it just makes managing the software so much easier.

What’s new? A bunch of new Screenlets as well as some new code to make Screenlets work without the need for a Composite Manager such as Compiz. Whoohoo! I can finally get some eye-candy on my old laptop.

Compiz 0.6.2 Backported to Gutsy

Well a few updates just came down out of the Gutsy backports. These happened to be Compiz 0.6.2

compiz (1:0.6.0+git20071008-0ubuntu1.1) to 1:0.6.2+git20071119-0ubuntu1~gutsy1
compiz-core (1:0.6.0+git20071008-0ubuntu1.1) to 1:0.6.2+git20071119-0ubuntu1~gutsy1
compiz-fusion-plugins-extra (0.5.2+git20070928-0ubuntu1) to 0.6.0+git20071121-0ubuntu1~gutsy1
compiz-gnome (1:0.6.0+git20071008-0ubuntu1.1) to 1:0.6.2+git20071119-0ubuntu1~gutsy1
compiz-plugins (1:0.6.0+git20071008-0ubuntu1.1) to 1:0.6.2+git20071119-0ubuntu1~gutsy1
libdecoration0 (1:0.6.0+git20071008-0ubuntu1.1) to 1:0.6.2+git20071119-0ubuntu1~gutsy1

If you would like to update your Compiz, Simply enable the Gutsy Backports repository by going System→Administration→Software Sources. Go to the Updates tab and enable the Gutsy Backports

Reload the Software Sources when prompted. You should then receive an update notification. Have fun

One of the things I noticed is that the drop shadow offset now works properly when adjusted.