MATE with Compiz/Emerald on Fedora 19
October 10, 2013 3:50 pm Leave your thoughts
So this will be a quick one, I recently re-installed my development machine using Fedora 19 after staying on Ubuntu with Unity for so long. By default the Fedora comes pre-installed with Gnome 3, which is almost completely different from what I’m used. Like Ubuntu’s Unity, I think people who like Gnome 3 will like it and others will just find another desktop manager. That’s the beauty of Linux after all, it’s all about choices.
Installation
In any case, I decided to install MATE, which is a fork of Gnome2 coupled with compiz for the 3d accelerations.
The commands that I used to install it were:
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sudo -s yum groupinstall MATE Desktop yum install compiz compiz-mate fusion-icon |
After that I restarted and logged in to MATE and tested to see if desktop composition is working.
I did that by going to Applications -> Accessories -> Compiz MATE Gtk. Alternatively you can also try Application -> Accesories -> Compiz MATE Emerald.
The Graphics Card
Previously that didn’t work for me, the desktop just hanged. Turned out that I needed to install the native drivers for my NVidia graphics card, I suspect anyone using AMD cards would need to do the same.
The really good guide to install the Nvidia graphic drivers is here: http://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2013/fedora-19-nvidia-guide/
Autostart
Once I have installed the graphic drivers and restarted I tried both Compiz MATE Gtk and Emerald again. This time it worked flawlessly. So the only think I need to do was to make it start automatically. It was easily done using dconf editor.
The steps were:
- Start the dconf editor: Applications -> System tools -> dconf Editor
- Go to Org -> Mate -> Desktop -> session -> required components
- Change the windowmanager value from “marco” to “compiz-mate-emerald” or “compiz-mate-gtk”
After the above I have a stable Fedora desktop suitable for software development work.
References
The information in this post were referenced from:
http://www.zealfortechnology.com/2013/07/install-mate-desktop-compiz-fedora-19.html
http://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2013/fedora-19-nvidia-guide/
http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/download
Categorised in: Linux Tricks, Tools