Running Debian 5.0 and have just installed Compiz-fusion.

I'm running Gnome as my DE, GTK as my window decorator and I'm trying to use Compiz as my window manager/compositer.

All is well except that on reboot, I lose my window title-bars (no min/max/close buttons and so forth).

I can use the Compiz Fusion Icon and the "Reload Window Manager" function to get them back, but that's getting to be a pain.

I've tried setting everything up the way I want and using the Session Manager to "save" my configuration, but the changes are not persistent after rebooting; I go right back to missing the title-bars and having to restart Compiz to get them back. Ugh...

How do I get my settings persistent? It seems like I just need to get Compiz to start automagically when I reboot. Help please??

Thanks in advance!
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Is compiz loading before the fusion icon or after it loads? The problem may be that the actual gnome session is trying to load compiz which is what you may not want.
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Well, that's a good question... Short answer is, I'm not sure. How would I be able to tell you if Gnome is trying to load Compiz or not?

What I can tell you is after rebooting no window has a title bar and I can't MOVE a window (because I can't grab the title bar obviously). I pretty much immediately start the Compiz-Icon and click on "Reload Window Manager" and voila!... Everything goes back to normal.

Thanks for your help, by the way. This is a really annoying problem. I just installed Debian (I'm trying to move away from Ubuntu) and there are few little issues like this I need to iron out yet.

All in all though, I'm finding Debian freakin' rocks! If I'd known the install was as easy as it is (some of the guides make it look a lot harder than it turned out to be) I would have done it a long time ago.
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You could try purging compiz and restarting X to see if that truly is the problem.

As far as checking what tools start with a gnome desktop, I don't know where to start with that. Xfce 4.6 has it's own GUI tools and with kde, you simply add files to ~/.kde/Autostart
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I had a similar problem with kde and their kwin tools, which also failed to start, no window controls, which is what the problem is here I believe. Attempts like trying to start kwin after kde started failed miserably, so I kind of doubt that will work, but it's certainly worth a try, whatever the gnome version of that is called, that's not a bad suggestion as a quick and dirty hack.

During my endless googlings, I found frequent references to this issue in connection to kde kwin failing to start with compiz, all of which I ignored because compiz wasn't my issue, but I believe the issues are quite closely related.

however, compiz is so problematic I don't use it, I like to keep my life simple, but I agree the window edges and controls failing to start every single time would get old very fast.

This is certainly a compiz specific issue that is breaking gnome window controls, like it does sometimes with kwin, which does l arge the same thing, put the programs into the dm window, with its controls, close, minimize, etc.
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Honestly, I'm ready to give compiz the old heave-ho. It's fun for a few minutes but I'm ready to give it up. It was problematic for me in Ubuntu and now it's being problematic here with Debian.

I tried using Synaptic and marking all the packages for "Complete Removal" but that didn't help. I know I could purge compiz and all its plugins using the Terminal but I'd need some help with the exact context for doing that.
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Do this:


This will show any remaining compiz cruft, if any.

However, it will only show package names from compiz that contain the term compiz, not other associated libraries.

compiz is cute, but causes nothing but problems from what I have seen.
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I check Synaptic by searching on "Compiz", mark everything I can find for "Complete Removal" and I'm clean as far as I can tell. I run the command and get the following output:
Do I need to manually root those out somehow?

HA! "root" them out... It's my first Linux-pun!!!
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Yes, they could still have configs. Many times apps that remove programs leave the configs, this test shows ALL shreds remaining, smxi uses this method in its cruft remover, with modifications to ensure no errors.

those configs can cause issues, or they might be actual packages, who knows, I've never really dealt with synaptic so I don't know what it does internally, dump it all though and then you'll know it's gone.

This is the type of test smxi does, and your results show you why I prefer to roll my own code than trust others, since I know what mine does and i know it's done as well as I can do it.


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I've done as you suggested and, from what I can tell, I'm Compiz free!

I know it must a placebo effect, but my system feels more responsive already.

Thanks mucho for the assist!
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