I’ve been a fan of Beryl for some time - using in on my Ubuntu, Debian Etch and Slackware distro machines. (see my article Desktop Time Wasters for images of my original Debian box with beryl.) I’ve always done this with source compiles on Slackware, and packages on Ubuntu and Debian.
Some time ago (more specifically, some package upgrades ago) I ran into a dependency issue on my Debian box that rendered Berly unusable. I can recall giving it some time, trying to work it out, but eventually giving up.
At the time (prior to the breakage) I was installing Beryl from the third-party repository (specifically, deb http://debian.beryl-project.org etch main for those interested).
In the time after my Debian machine’s beryl install broke, I reinstalled a Ubuntu (Hardy Heron) on my IBM X41 (related articles here and here.) I didn’t pay much attention at the time (it was late, I may have been drinking, etc.) but at the end of the install I had what I thought was beryl controlling the Ubuntu desktop on my IBM X41.
I didn’t pay it much attention, until I finally became annoyed by the fact that my Debian box no longer looked like l wanted it to. I decided it was time to compare what I had (working) on my Ubuntu box to what was (not working) on my debian box. That was the Rosetta Stone that finally made it all click in my mind.
The trouble I was having all stemmed from a change in the packaging names of what I called Beryl in both Ubuntu and Debian. In fact, an open-source (re)convergence had occurred between Beryl (the eye candy, and a window manager) and compiz (the compositing window manager) that created an entirely new line of packages, Compiz Fusion.
While you can easily add the appropriate entry into /etc/apt/sources.list, both the Debian etch/sid and Ubuntu hardy main repositories (i.e. the repositories that you should already have configured after an install) have access to the packages you should need. Granted, in neither case will the packages be the bleeding edge of latest development that you can get from either the beryl or fusion maintained repositories (complete with svn checkout branches.) However, both will provide you with the coolest, cpu-consuming desktop graphic effects that will keep all but the most eye-candy addicted among us happy. So how do we make this work?
First off, if you (like me on my Debian box) are a former beryl repository user, you’ll first want to move those packages. These steps should work out for either Debian or Ubuntu systems.
I suggest using Synaptic package manger, and removing packages related to the following search terms:
After that, remove any of the beryl references from your /etc/apt/sources.lst file and running sudo apt-get update. Or, if you are more inclined towards Synaptic Package Manager, open it up and select Settings–>Repositories–>Third party software and remove the appropriate entry (or entries).
Now it’s time to add in the new stuff. There a few different packages required to make this all work together. I haven’t yet identified any one specific package that has all of these as a dependency (and thus would make this all work by simply selecting that one specific package.) Readers, if you know of one (or few) that will accomplish this, please leave a comment so it can be shared with the rest of us! I do know for sure that, at the end of the day, I needed the following packages to make this all come together:
- mesa-utils
- libcompizconfig0
- compiz-gtk
- libdecoration0
- compizconfig-backend-gconf
- compiz-fusion-bcop
- compiz-plugins
- compizconfig-settings-manager
- python-compizconfig
- fusion-icon
- compiz-fusion-plugins-extra
- compiz-fusion-plugins-unsupported
- compiz-core
- compiz-fusion-plugins-main
- compiz-gnome
After making sure that all of these packages are installed, your first step should be to simply restart X. The “sure fire” way to do this would be to restart the whole box. If you’re more adventurous, then either you’ve already set your gdm (gnome display manager) to restart at every login, or you can kill gdm and restart it as root from the command line.
Either way, if all went magically well, you should see the “Fusion Icon” appear in your tray on your task bar (see image at left.) This seemed to “just work” for my Ubuntu install, but required a couple of extra steps on my Debian system.
The couple of extra steps
For my Debian laptop, I had to manually add it to my Startup Programs. Go to System–>Preferences–>Sessions. Under the “Startup Programs” tab, click on “Add”. Give it a name, and ‘/usr/bin/fusion-icon’ as the command:
This end is only the beginning!
You should now have Compiz Fusion active on your desktop. So now what? Right-click on the Fusion icon in your tray and check out some of the options. You can change the window manager on the fly, and (depending on what you have installed) you may be able to change your window decorator as well. Finally, take a look at the ‘Settings Manager.’ In the next Compiz Fusion post, I’ll walk through some of the cooler features of Compiz Fusion - things like Window transparencies, neat visual effects, etc.
Until then…
Metasploit 3.2 Released
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