XFCE missing window borders!

[racie]

Hey everyone. Puppy has done wonders for my laptop, but I'm having a bit of an issue. I installed Compiz and XFCE, but upon switching to XFCE, I have noticed that all of my window borders are gone!

I have a feeling part of this is because of issues with Emerald. I can open a theme in Emerald just fine, but when I try to click on the theme to change it, Emerald just turns off and doesn't change my theme.

I've tried to look up various solutions on the forum, but nothing has helped.

This:

also installed Compiz Fusion and the XFCE4 desktop packages. Had some initial problems with losing the XFCE window decorations, but finally got them back by replacing "emerald --replace &" with "gtk-window-decorator --replace &" in /root/.xinitrc. Also did this in the Compiz Setting Manager - in the Window Decoration configuration dialogue.

Does not do anything after I restarted the X Server.

I basically a very similar issue to this angry fellow.

This old thread tells me to do this:

By the way, Emerald crashes if you change or edit a theme, to solve it go to: Beryl-Manager(systray icon)>Reload Window Decorator.
The emerald binary in the dotpup was previously 'strip'ed and 'upx'ed, it also crashes with an unpacked binary.

However, I don't have Beryl-Manager. Wasn't that the old version of Compiz?

I'm not really sure what else to do. :/

Any ideas are appreciated!

[racie]

Ahh okay. I've definitely narrowed the issue down specifically to Emerald itself. XFCE works just fine by itself, but as soon as Compiz is installed (which uses Emerald), the window borders disappear.

If only I could find a way to NOT use Emerald. The solution someone else used for this didn't work for me for some reason.

[666philb]

hi racie

i've noticed this as well. Out of 4 times, installing xfce compiz, it has only worked once. I've no idea why it worked that time. I will try a few experiments with it and get back to you. I presuming that your using puppy lupu520?

666philb

[666philb]

hi racie,

after scratching my head, and experimenting, and getting really frustrated, i was about to give up and say i don't know, when I spotted something in someones post, about having no windows borders until they rebooted. And low and behold that was the answer. On a vanilla lupu520, installed my graphic drivers, installed the xfcecompiz.pet . Changed window managers to xfce and had no windows borders. I then rebooted and yay!! had borders.
I hope this solves your problem.

And thankyou for not getting angry like that other frustrated fellow.


666philb

[racie]

Hm... I'll have to try that.

Unfortunately, there's been a problem with my Puppy lately with shutting off the computer and saving my pupsave. I think I'll have to get around to making a new bootable USB, but I'll definitely try restarting!

Thanks for your response.

[einar]

a reboot did not help / and never has for me. Any other ideas ?

666philb does it still work for you ?

[666philb]

yes it does, i even tried it again when upgrading to lucid525. Installed my graphic card drivers, then installed the 'compiz_xfce4-4.6.2-Lucid.pet' .No windows initially, then fine after reboot. Still fine now. As an experiment, try booting with 'puppy pfix=ram' so that it ignores your savefile. then install you graphics drivers, and install the compiz_xfce4-4.6.2-Lucid.pet.. And reboot. Create a new savefile when asked (you can delete this later). See if it's working now.

[einar]

are you using a laptop, im thinking this is only a laptop issue ?

[einar]

are you using a laptop, im thinking this is only a laptop issue ?

[666philb]

no i'm on a desktop..... it maybe to do with your graphic drivers,... you did install them didn't you? Did you try my suggestion above? As if it works you know that your puppy install is messed up. If it doesn't then it's probably your graphics drivers.

[racie]

Hm... it seems that it 5.25 there is a new problem...

After installing the package compiz_xfce4-4.6.2-Lucid, Puppy Package Manager informs me that there packages libgoocanvas.so.3, libmlt++.so.3, libtcl8.5.so, and libtk8.5.so are missing. Both Compiz settings managers will run, but Compiz will refuse to do anything.

If I install Compiz and XFCE4 separately (with the two packages xfce4-4.6.2-519-beta-Lucid and Compiz-0.8.4-Lucid), there are no missing dependencies, but Compiz and both of its settings managers will not run at all.

This is proving more of a hassle than I hoped it would be.

[666philb]

racie..... have you tried this on a completely new vanilla puppy 525? as it's working for me. I get those missing deps but it still works. those deps are probably resolved by installing python but even without that xfce still works for me. All i did was boot live, install my graphics driver, install the 'compiz_xfce4-4.6.2-Lucid.pet' shutdown, create a savefile, reboot. worked.

If you've tried the above on a completely fresh system then i don't know what else to suggest.

someone else may have an idea

666philb

[racie]

No no... XFCE works fine... it's Compiz that's broken now. I'm not able to get any of the desktop effects running. Is there some sort of setting I need to turn on? I tried restarting and it didn't fix the problem.

My install is not completely new... I removed the pre-installed games, but I really don't think they are needed to run Compiz properly.

[106498]

You could try seeing if compiz will run by itself. Exit X and type

Code: Select all

xwin compiz-manager

Then start the xfce panels from a terminal window, and see it it plays nice.

(The above works on fluppy, with the compiz sfs)

[racie]

No dice... I can't start x that way for some reason...

Compiz Manager starts fine without the command (and x is already running), but it simply doesn't work. I get no desktop effects whatsoever.

Also I am having a problem where XFCE will not let me create shortcut keys for anything!

Gahh! So many issues. :/

[wizzerd02]

I had no borders until I edited /etc/X11/xorg.conf under section "Screen" to:

Default Depth 24

and under "Display"

Depth 24

*Note: there should already be entries in these locations so you will want to either change the existing ones or comment them out if you type new ones[/code]

[reasonit]

same problem . no window decorations, but compiz works perfectly.
rebooting or changing default depth didnt help.

Using Nvidia 173 drivers and xgce compiz pet.

Edit: Does there exists an alternative to emerald? if so can it be used here instead ?

[BlueKnyght]

Hey Guys!

I had the same problem about missing window borders, and got it solved. Let me share how I got it right. Actually, I'm no expert nor a developer, so when I encountered this problem I just kept reinstalling Puppy 5.2.5, and reinstall compiz_xfce too repeatedly *LOL* thinking I just made a mistake while installing Puppy.

On my last reinstall of Puppy, while setting up xorg.conf using xorgwizard, I noticed that I kept selecting the highest resolution with 16 bits, so I tried selecting the lower resolution with 24 bits and went on. Then from the initial window of Personalize Settings I chose the high resolution suited for my system, then I installed compiz xfce, and there it was. BEAUTIFUL Compositing XFCE!!!

Now I realized I shouldn't have reinstalled Puppy, I should have just exited X, and run xorgwizard. *LOL* *LOL* *LOL*

I think this is just the same with wezzerd02's solution, but it's only now that I stumbled on this thread and viewed his post.