Michael Dolan Dot Com

Thursday, October 18th, 2007

Getting more from the 3D Desktop effects in Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon

For those of you unwrapping (err… logging in) Gusty Gibbon for the first time, setting up Desktop Effects and wondering – “where’s that cube thing I heard all about?” – well, you have to enable it. Here’s how:

1) Pull up Synaptic Package Manager in System->Administration

2) Search for “gnome compiz” or “compiz manager” and add (check on) the “gnome-compiz-manager” package in the search results.

3) Click the Apply button and wait for it to install

4) Open up System-> Preferences-> GL Desktop

5) Have fun – change settings such as creating a cube (or specifying the # of sides) on the Workspaces tab

Note that it appears the manager seems to have some ‘issues’ (for instance it didn’t start up the first time I clicked on it), but it does work and is very easy to use.