There are alot of things adorable on Linux. There aren't just the server qualitys nomore, there are also alot of nice things in Linux's (Or better X's?) Desktop Environments. One of this really awesome things is Compiz.

Compiz is a "Compositing Window Manager for the X Window System", which uses 3D graphics to enhance your Desktop experience. Its not just a proof of concept anymore, its also a really impressive way to work! Compiz can make your life easier, if you really want to. If not, it can awesomly impress anyone that gets a look at your screen, neat to show off with.

Even if Compiz is known to be quite stable, it also has really mean bugs, making it impossible to use it for some users. Me for example.

My laptop - a HP Pavilion zd8000 (P4 3.02GHz, 1GB RAM, ATI X600 Mobility 128MB) - would run just awesome with Compiz. Trust me, I tried it!

There is just one problem: I'm using two screens.

Using two screens makes compiz often useless. The problem is, that compiz seems to hate it when one direction X or Y is bigger than the maximum texture size of your graphics card. Unfortunately the maximum texture size for my graphics card is 2048px (Pixel) (The command "glxinfo -l | grep GL_MAX_TEXTURE_SIZE" shows you what it is for you!). I have one 17" widescreen in the laptop (1440x900) and one monitor (1280x1024). So 1440px + 1280px are ... let me guess ... *gets out Qalculate!* ... 2720px!

And this is a bit bigger than 2048px, so the Compiz Script of Ubuntu 8.04 will fail ("Comparing resolution (2720x1024) to maximum 3D texture size (2048): Failed."). But as I am a pain in the ass to my system (I fucked it up more than once :] ), I am interested in "What happens if I just deactivate the check for the Texture size?". The answer was simple: It works, but the last 672px are cut off... at least 672px of my background. The windows, though, like Opera or my porn vid (just joking :D) are going further to the right. For them, just the last 62px seem to be black. I don't know why and I am sure you don't know why, too.

However, the result is that I am not able to use Compiz for work as I am in need of two screens - all of it. And if you read this, you maybe aren't able to, too. I'll not give out any hint to a workaround of the texture size problem. It's the responsibility of the Compiz developer to make their program ss (silly safe), is what I think.

So far, xx,
x3