Ben Kevan’s Blog

openSUSE 11.1 Compiz & NOMAD (xrdp)

Recently on the openSUSE Mailing list people have complained about issues with compiz not working, and all the issues seem to come back to the same answer being “install compiz without the NOMAD patch”.

Matt Sealey on the openSUSE Mailling list said it best with his question:

Pardon my asking and perhaps ignorance but what is this NOMAD patch?
All I can find Googling is a ton of problems people have with it but no
actual explanation of what it is or does?

I then googled NOMAD much like Matt tried and I saw the same fate that he ran into. Luckily I have played with it and hope to explain it a little to shed a tiny piece of light.

NOMAD to put simply is going to allow some breakthrough remote services while connecting to Linux machines. These remote services include, but are not limited to, RDP services to a Linux machine.

Ok, I know this sounds great and dandy but I do not think yet it’s ready for production as of RC1. There are still quite a few bugs that lower its functionality or keeps it from working on some systems. Once it is at a point where I feel it’s full funtion I’ll be blogging about it.

Now, how can you start helping out and testing it? If you’re running openSUSE 11.1 RC1 and you can install it by running:

sudo zypper in xrdp

If you’re running compiz (desktop decorations) be sure to install the following:

sudo zypper in compiz-plugins-dmx

You can then start the service by running:

sudo /sbin/service xrdp start

Now try doing:

rdesktop localhost

To check it out (Note: If you’re running kdm it will most likely not work, and even if you are running gdm, you may have some issues). Like I said, it’s not 100% yet.

Ok.. so this blog was really to get Compiz working in 11.1 on machines where Compiz was broken (due to the Compiz that ships with the NOMAD patch). To do this, use the compiz packages in the XGL Build Service Repository. The XGL repository differs from the Compiz repository because it does not have the included NOMAD patch.

I’m HOPING by the time final is released that this issue will be fixed, but that time is coming and I don’t get much information on the bugzilla report which can be found:
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=444442

I’m hoping to test the compiz packages from “RC1″ again today.. but am still not holding my breath for a miracle.

Which brings me to the question:

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Note: I am including a quick installation guide for getting Compiz to work with openSUSE 11.1 PRE-RELEASE VERSIONS .. Note: I am using the factory repository.. when 11.1 is released I expect to see a openSUSE_11.1 repository so you wouldn’t use Factory at that time

sudo zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XGL/openSUSE_Factory/ Compiz

Note: The above one line

Update the packages from that XGL Build Service repository:

sudo zypper up -t package -r Compiz

Switch to runlvl3

sudo init 3

login..

Remove the current compiz configurations:

rm -rf ~/.config/compiz

Switch to runlvl5

sudo init 5

Tags: compiz, nomad, opensuse

My beta 5 woes - :(

Boy Oh Boy.. have I been having some issues after updating to the second sync of Beta 5 this morning.

#1 OpenOffice will not open anything over smb protocol.. Bugzilla 443467
#2 With Compiz when I close krdc (on KDE 3.5.10) it kills my whole X session (this is with xrdp and dmx packages installed) Bugzilla 444249
#3 KSnapshot kills my X session much like krdc (on KDE 3.5.10) Bugzilla 443819
#4 xrdp isn’t working with KDM due to pam issues, also when I have gdm I am still getting other errors Bugzilla 441750
#5 After installed the newest sync of beta 5 (as of this morning) the Kernel 2.6.27.5-2.2 seems to have killed my NVIDIA driver, and NVIDIA driver will not work as previous (I suspect kernel upgrade did it, as the other packages installed don’t seem to have anything to do with it) Note: This actually seems to be a compiz issue, where GLX will not stay loaded
#6 Ok.. not really a bug.. but some direction would be nice: removal of emerald or fix for emerald to work with NOMAD patch for X to get xrdp working Bugzilla 431846

All in all, this build of Beta 5 .. has given me quite the headaches..

How are other fairing with Beta 5?

Tags: 11.1, beta, broken, compiz, opensuse

The sad state of emerald for compiz & its possible demise

As some of you may know, emerald is a very nice themer for compiz. However, recently a major patch was applied known as the “nomad” patch. The patch was applied on Tuesday Sept 16th and has ripped havoc for people who use Emerald.

So you’d imagine someone just needs to fix emerald. However, emerald is no longer maintained which means, unless someone really steps up it’ll just be a memory.

So what are the choices for openSUSE 11.1?

Remove compiz-emerald to keep the number of bug reports down
Find someone to maintain emerald (alot harder then just removing it)
Applying a home built hack patch to keep in 11.1 and gracefully remove from 11.2 with correct notification to the community.
Revert back to compiz pre-nomad patch (not sure about the regressoins of this).

I personally have reverted back to the “pre-nomad” version of 0.7.8 (you can modify the spec file, and just remove the patch2) .. and am keeping emerald (as I like having control of the size of my taskbar etc.. since I think all the KDE Decorations waste tons of desktop space.

Edit: Does anyone know the version of Compiz / Compiz Emerald on Ubuntu 8.10 and if it works? If it does, why can’t the patch there be used for openSUSE emerald? If they opted “not” to use the NOMAD patch, why do we “have” to? < Dunno why I just thought of that.

Tags: 11.1, compiz, emerald, opensuse