Kde4, xorg, compiz, ati driver?

[Enunes]

I'm not sure if there's an easy solution for this as it seems to be a bit random for me, but worth a try.

I'm an ATI (mobility x1600) user. Compiz Fusion works great!! Starts automatic, never gets slowed down whatever i do. I love Kde4 too, so awesome, they are doin an awesome job.

My problem is the following:

When i start kde4, after login, it starts up with compiz loaded. Then the kde loading gets boucing for about half a minute on my cursor. Suddenly, it stops (timeouts?) and compiz gets killed, and my windows get frameless. Then i open a konsole, type compiz --replace and everything runs great once again.

I understand it's kde4, it's not ready and all that stuff. It all started when i was happily using it and then i got a blank screen. Then a screen appeared asking if i wanted to try fix my xorg. I answered yes (and i think that's the whole problem, regret i did.). Was using drivers from restricted drivers manager. Then everytime i tried to log in it would do the same that i have now, but instead of killing compiz it would totally crash and bring up blank screen.

Then i loaded on terminal, installed EnvyNG and overwritten my current driver with envy's. Now it works but it's been annoying to everytime load, wait for compiz to crash, and load it again.


Anyone has any clue?

Thanks in advance

[integr8e]

Re: Kde4, xorg, compiz, ati driver?

Do you have Emerald installed? I ask because Emerald seems to have serious issues with KDE...instead, you'll probably want to switch to Kwin which now works with Compiz; to do so, press Alt+F2 and run the following command:

kde-window-decorator

That should - hopefully - fix your problem. KDE4 has a built-in compositing manager that is really beginning to shape up to Compiz, but most of its features won't be present until KDE 4.1 (the current version is 4.0.3).

As far as the bouncing cursor goes, there's not much of a connection between it and actually opening an application (it serves more as a tide-me-over until the application can open). What program are you trying to run?

[Enunes]

Re: Kde4, xorg, compiz, ati driver?

Hi,
Thanks for the quick answer.

I do have Emerald installed, but i guess it's not being used. I also guess i dont need it, because every feature i wanted was selectable at ccsm.

By the way, i noticed alt+f2 stopped working too, adding to these issues i have already listed.

The bouncing cursor is the one that follows right after login. It's just a gear, not any program i execute myself, i guess its just some KDE processes loading..

Have tried kwin but i was using kwin --replace to open it. I like some features of it, but it lacks wobbling windows.. I'd rather run compiz each time i boot the pc than not having wobbles :P

[Enunes]

Re: Kde4, xorg, compiz, ati driver?

I'm starting to think this is all related to the fact that my notebook is not being shutdowned right (ATI user and having laptop shutting down issues that are being discussed in Hardware Support).
Isn't it supposed to load everything i left open in the last time when i boot? Well it isn't doing this... In fact, it always opens Pidgin, no matter i close it and don't open it when i shut down. I guess i had Pidgin opened when it started having these issues, and my kde boot config is something like "stuck" and doesn't get saved when i shut down. Is there a way to try to fix this?

I am being able to shutdown "successfully" with halt command.

By the way, always i attempt to shutdown with 'sudo shutdown now' it doesn't shut down, instead, it opens the very same Recovery screen i told about in the first post, with the "Attempt to fix xorg.conf" option... When i skip it, it goes to login screen.

Hope these clues help trying to find a possible solution... Thanks in advance!

[integr8e]

Re: Kde4, xorg, compiz, ati driver?

Don't use "kwin --replace", you don't want to replace Compiz with Kwin, just the window decoration; use "kde-window-decorator" instead.  Emerald is keeping you from opening the "Run Command..." window with Alt+F2, so while it's running, you'll have to manually click the KMenu and choose "Run Command...".

The bouncing cursor/spinning hourglass in the taskbar are activated for about 30 seconds whenever you click an application icon, they don't really have anything to do with the application actually loading - that's why they'll spin sometimes and nothing will open.  When that happens, you need to try opening the application again, and if it still doesn't work, try running it from Konsole (that way you should be able to see what's causing the load error).

The session manager is not perfect; sometimes it will load the exact session you closed and sometimes it won't - sometimes it will load an old session you saved.  It has 3 settings: "Restore previous session", "Restore manually saved session", and "Start with an empty session"; you can change them from "KMenu -> System Settings -> Advanced tab (on the top) -> Session Manager".  In my opinion, the cleanest way to start a session would be to run a startup script upon login from an empty session (did you catch that ); to do so, create a file and call it something like "startup".  It should look similar to the following:

#! /bin/bash
# You can put your name here if you want

### Your startup applications go here; below are some examples ###
/usr/bin/akregator --hide-mainwindow     # Starts the Akregator feed reader
/usr/bin/kmix                                             # Starts the KMix sound mixer
/usr/bin/yakuake                                       # Starts the Yakuake terminal emulator
/usr/bin/adept_notifier                              # Starts the Adept update notifier applet
/usr/bin/compiz                                         # Starts the Compiz compositing window manager

That's roughly what mine looks like; you'll notice I start Compiz last - that's because some of the Systray applets have issues loading if they load at the same time as CF (Compiz-Fusion).  You would then place the file in your ~/.kde/Autostart directory and make it "run-able" with the following code:

chmod u+x ~/.kde/Autostart/startup

It will then be run automatically each time you login.

I don't usually force the shutdown via CLI, which is more than likely why your session manager has issues loading your previous sessions; instead, I logout and shut it down from the login screen.  Everything runs more smoothly that way.