For GNOME and KDE users

Jun 24, 2007 09:46 GMT  ·  By

We talked a few days ago about the Compiz and Beryl mergence and the name of the newly born project resulted from this fusion, Compiz Fusion. The Compiz Fusion project tries to bring us all the latest 3D technologies, such as Cube reflection, paint fire on your desktop and a lot of new eye candy animations.

The following guide will teach you (step by step) how to install Compiz Fusion on your Ubuntu (Kubuntu) 7.04 operating system. Be aware that Compiz Fusion is still in heavy development, so it may not be very stable. For me (at this moment) it's pretty stable, as I didn't encounter any bugs.

Open a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal for GNOME users or KMenu -> System -> Konsole for KDE users) and type:

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sudo apt-get -y remove compiz-core desktop-effects
Leave the terminal open and go to System -> Administration -> Software Sources, click on the second tab (Third-Party Software), then click on the "Add" button and paste the following code:
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deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy
Click the "Add Source" button after you pasted the above code and do the same for the following code:
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deb-src http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy
Don't close the Software Sources window yet!

In the terminal window, type:

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wget http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb/DD800CD9.gpg
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sudo apt-key add DD800CD9.gpg
Now click the "Close" button on the Software Sources window and you will be asked if you want to reload the information about available software, so click the "Reload" button and wait for the window to disappear.

Copy/Paste the following lines in the terminal window:

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sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get -y upgrade
FOR GNOME USERS:
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sudo apt-get -y install compiz compiz-gnome compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-fusion-plugins-extra libcompizconfig-backend-gconf
FOR KDE USERS:
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sudo apt-get -y install compiz compiz-kde compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-fusion-plugins-extra libcompizconfig-backend-kconfig
Now, if everything was correctly installed and you didn't encounter errors, press ALT+F2 and type:
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compiz --replace
That's it! Enjoy the latest 3D eye candy effects on your (K)Ubuntu OS.

Some quick tricks:

- Hold CTRL + ALT keys and with the left mouse button rotate the cube - Super + E activates the Expo plugin - Hold Super + Shift and with your mouse paint fire on your desktop - Super + Shift + C will erase the fire paint - Super + Tab activates the Ring Switcher plugin

Here is a quick video demonstration: