Uninstalling compiz disables metacity

[Allan MacKinnon]

Binary package hint: compiz

Before I used to be able to remove the compiz pacakges and nothing bad would happen.

Now I remove it and I lose my window manager.

I know Ubuntu devs have been integrating compiz into gnome but I miss being able to remove it completely seeing how valuable extra space is on the ISO for the Ubuntu-based distro I'm making.

Could it be possible for the devs to take compiz back to its more modular state so I don't lose the WM?

I posted this originally in 'Answers' but was told it was indeed a bug.

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/11562

Metacity was installed and I did not have Desktop Effects active when I removed compiz.

[Andreas Sandberg (andysan)]

We ran into the same problem when we were setting up new terminal servers for the Update Computer Club. Seems like the gnome-wm script is broken.

Seems like window manager discovery starting at line 69 gets disabled since DEFWM is set to /usr/bin/compiz on line 49 if no window manager has been specified in gconf. This shouldn't be necessary since compiz is the first window manager to be tested if the composite extension is loaded.

Removing the following lines (46-50) from the script, should fix the problem, while still preserving Compiz functionality:
if [ ! -x "$DEFWM" ]; then
    gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/applications/window_manager/default /usr/bin/compiz --type string
    DEFWM=/usr/bin/compiz
fi

[Allan MacKinnon (theforkofjustice)]

More like the postrm script for the compiz package(s) is either broken or missing because metacity should be made to take over the wm duties after compiz is removed.

The command:

metacity --replace

should probably be added to the postrm script if it isn't already.

That's just my uneducated opinion.

[Frodon (frodon)]

It may be related to a bug report i made :
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-session/+bug/157780

Basically the command to save the session look at the Gconf key to get the WM name and i noticed this key is not updated which make your session still launching your old WM.

Check if my bug description correspond to your problem, first thing is to verify that your Gconf key points to /usr/bin/metacity and not /usr/bin/compiz

[Andreas Sandberg (andysan)]

Allan:
The problem that we've been facing isn't that the postrm scripts don't run metacity --replace, this could also be a problem if you are uninstalling compiz from within the desktop environment, but we wouldn't have noticed that since we had no running X-terminals at that point. The problem we had (until we patched the gnome-wm script) was that the window manager couldn't be started at all.

Frodon:
I don't believe these two issues to be related, however, this issue affects the default window manager key, since it is forced to /usr/bin/compiz (even though compiz is not installed) if no window manager is set.

[nowshining (nowshining)]

i had this problem i think, unsetting a certain key fixed it for me...

http://www.freewebs.com/gutsygibbon/metacitynoborders.htm

a fix for borders if this is the problem if anyone wants just let me know a way to fix up the words on that page to an understandable format if anyone wants tooo...

[Jim Bray (jimsantelmo)]

  The attached patch is simply a diff of the current (Hardy) /usr/bin/gnome-wm and the current
Debian/unstable /usr/bin/gnome-wm. I've had to fix the Ubuntu version of /usr/bin/gnome-wm for
some months every time a new version is installed, since it sets one's wm to compiz whether or
not compiz exists on one's system.

  The Debian version works, so the easier way is just to replace the Ubuntu version with
the Debian version, if one has both dists on one's system.

[sam tygier (samtygier)]

raise importance.

if compiz is not installed then gnome should launch metacity. debian has the update-alternatives system to deal with these sorts of issues, so it should be easy to fix.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

gnome-session already ships a wrapper script (gnome-wm) which will pick a window manager and launch it if it is available. gnome-wm is the default WM on a fresh install.

[sam tygier (samtygier)]

i am seeing this in karmic. do you want me to open a new bug report?

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

I don't know. I don't know what component you would open it against if you did. It's not a gnome-session bug if you set the WM from gnome-wm to compiz, then uninstall compiz. gnome-session will try to start what it is told to start, and if the component is not there then there is not a lot it can do about it.

Like I said, we already install and use a wrapper script by default (gnome-wm) to take care of this.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Ah, ok. gnome-wm will try to start compiz by default still. That's a low importance issue though. Compiz is installed by default and most users won't uninstall it.

[Jim Bray (jimsantelmo)]

So glad I switched back to Debian years ago...

Chris Coulson wrote:
> Ah, ok. gnome-wm will try to start compiz by default still. That's a low
> importance issue though. Compiz is installed by default and most users
> won't uninstall it.
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-session (Ubuntu)
> Importance: Medium => Low
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-session (Ubuntu)
> Status: Invalid => Confirmed
>
>

[coldReactive (coldreactive)]

Also note: Removing compiz removes gnome-session from ubuntu in 9.10 ubuntu.

[sam tygier (samtygier)]

is this still an issue for anyone?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for gnome-session (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]