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Linux Desktop Hacks
book

Linux Desktop Hacks

by Nicholas Petreley, Jono Bacon
March 2005
Beginner to intermediate content levelBeginner to intermediate
342 pages
15h 55m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Linux Desktop Hacks
110
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Chapter 4, Related to X
#33 Add Depth to Your Desktop
HACK
# cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.freedesktop.org:/cvs/xorg login
CVS password: (press Enter)
# cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@pdx.freedesktop.org:/cvs/xapps co xcompmgr
# cd xcompmgr
# sh autogen.sh
# ./configure
# make
# make install
Start Your Desktop or Window Manager
The xcompmgr program doesn’t play well with every desktop or window
manager. In my experience, it does not work well with Metacity, the default
window manager for GNOME. Metacity is supposed to have some of the
xcompmgr capabilities already built-in, but I have not been able to tap into
them. Regardless, you can’t invoke xcompmgr until you have started your
favorite desktop or window manager, so do that now.
The manpage for xcompmgr explains the various tricks you can do with the
program. However, the following combination of command-line switches
should please nearly everyone. Open an X terminal and type this command:
$ xcompmgr -cCfF -l 0 -t 0 -r 5 -o .6 &
If everything works the way it should, the screen should go mostly blank for
a moment, after which any open windows will reappear with drop shadows.
You should also notice that things such as menus have drop shadows and
fade in and out. See Figure 4-3 for an example of this effect.
Here’s what the command-line switches do. The
-l 0 and –t 0 switches tell
xcompmgr that 0 pixels (no shadow at all) should appear to the left of the
window ...
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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596009119Supplemental ContentCatalog PageErrata