Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Article Index 1. Step 1: Installation of VGA driver 1.1. Installation of nVidia restricted driver 1.2. Installation of ATI driver 2. Step 2: Enable Ubuntu's extra visual effects 3. Step 3: Installation of Ubuntu compiz 3D cube desktop effect 4. Step 4: Enable Ubuntu compiz 3D cube desktop effect 5. Compiz effects
If you ever get bored of your ordinary default Ubuntu desktop or you feel that you do not utilize your Graphic card the way you should, you can try to enable Ubuntu compiz 3D cube Desktop Effect the give your desktop an extra spark. This article will provide you with a step-by-step configuration on how to enable Ubuntu compiz 3D cube Desktop Effect. 1. Step 1: Installation of VGA driver
You may skip this step if you have already installed restricted display drivers from Ubuntu's PPA repository. This step is optional even with a default Ubuntu installation. I recommend to proceed with Step 2 and let Ubuntu system will attempt to detect your VGA card and install appropriate VGA drivers for your card automatically. If that fails come back to Step 1 and do it manually as described below. 1.1. Installation of nVidia restricted driver
A complete installation guide for ATI graphic cards can be found here:
At this point we should be able to enable extra visual effects for a gnome desktop. Navigate to:
Extra: Provides more aesthetically pleasing set of effects. Requires faster graphics card.
If you skipped Step 1 you will now be guided through graphic cards driver installation. Once installation is complete reboot your system the get new drivers take effect.
At this point we can install compiz extra plugin and compiz simple manager to enable compiz 3D cube desktop effect. This requires installation of following packages:
simple-ccsm compiz-fusion-plugins-extra
At this stage we are ready to enable Ubuntu compiz 3D cube desktop effect by navigating to:
System -> Preferences -> Simple CompizConfig Setting Manager -> Desktop -> Appearance -> Desktop Cube
Now to rotate your compiz 3D cube press CTRL + ALT + Left Mouse click anywhere on your desktop. By moving your mouse you start rotate your cylinder which is a default effect for your 3D "cube":
System -> Preferences -> Simple CompizConfig Setting Manager -> Effects -> Cube Effects -> Deformation -> None
This is just a simple default compiz settings. Feel free to explore more compiz effects by navigating to: