Comment 110 for bug 130325

On 17/09/2007, Ralf Nieuwenhuijsen <email address hidden> wrote:

> Maybe I am missing the point ..
>
> 1) Compiz is not on by default for NVidia
>
> But if you own an Nvidia card, then there is no compiz by default!
> Why do people insist on claiming that there is?

The first time you run X after a clean install of gutsy, it tells you
that you can enable restricted drivers for better functionality and
offers a dialog to do so -- every new user with an nvidia card will
see that, and most will probably choose it. As soon as you do that
and reboot, compiz will start causing problems; if you don't do that,
you can't use 3D apps with nvidia. If you want to use 3D apps, you
have to figure out on your own (no automatic prompts) to go to the
System/Preferences/Appearance dialog, choose the "Desktop" tab, and
check the "No effects" radio button. That's not intuitive.

I agree that this problem will affect only a minority of Ubuntu users
-- probably less than 20% -- and that it's nvidia's fault rather than
compiz's, but what benefits do we get from defaulting to compiz to
offset that problem? Why not make gutsy stable for those users as
well? You're not really doing anything useful for the other 80%
anyway, aside from a bit of eye candy.

All the best,

David