big compiz disaster: could use some advice

Paul Johnson pauljohn32 at gmail.com
Fri Jun 6 18:15:59 UTC 2008


On an F9 64 bit system, I decided to try compiz because it worked so
beautifully on my Ubuntu systems.

I was testing the features, an tried the zoom thing in which you hit
the Super key and use the right mouse button to highlight an area of
the screen, and then that screen zooms to show just the selected part.
 Right after I did that, compiz stopped reacting to mouse and
keyboard, and I had to do Alt-Ctrl-Backspace to get X to restart.
Now, whenever I try to run compiz, I can use the Gnome applications
menu to choose programs, but none of them ever successfully start.
Compiz segfaults every time a program tries to start, and the segfault
kills the program too. Compiz flashes black for a moment then re-draws
the screen.   Here's what shows in /var/log/messages

Jun  6 10:02:08 pols110 kernel: compiz[5119]: segfault at 37866022b0
ip 37866022b0 sp 7fffb798d438 error 4 in
libXfixes.so.3.1.0[3786a00000+5000]
Jun  6 10:02:20 pols110 kernel: compiz[5204]: segfault at 37866022b0
ip 37866022b0 sp 7fffca13ecc8 error 4 in
libXfixes.so.3.1.0[3786a00000+5000]
Jun  6 10:02:38 pols110 kernel: compiz[5207]: segfault at 37866022b0
ip 37866022b0 sp 7fff8df579e8 error 4 in
libXfixes.so.3.1.0[3786a00000+5000]
Jun  6 10:02:45 pols110 kernel: compiz[5211]: segfault at 37866022b0
ip 37866022b0 sp 7fff4c48cf28 error 4 in
libXfixes.so.3.1.0[3786a00000+5000]
Jun  6 10:02:52 pols110 kernel: compiz[5215]: segfault at 37866022b0
ip 37866022b0 sp 7fff99b70608 error 4 in
libXfixes.so.3.1.0[3786a00000+5000]
Jun  6 10:03:09 pols110 console-kit-daemon[2378]:
GLib-GObject-WARNING: IA__g_object_get_valist: value location for
`gchararray' passed as NULL

Jun  6 10:03:09 pols110 kernel: compiz[5229]: segfault at 3790a2ea70
ip 3790a2ea70 sp 7fff45f3b2e8 error 4 in
libstartup-notification-1.so.0.0.0[3791200000+9000]

I see one of those messages for each program I try to start.

I rebooted the system, compiz comes back in this messed up state.

I'd like to "clear out" all of the compiz settings, and tried to do
that with the compiz settings manager, but this malfunction still
happens.  The only thing I can do is run System/Personal/Desktop
Effects and turn them off.

What do you think?

Here's how I got in this mess:

I installed these RPMS:

Jun 06 09:10:20 Installed: gnome-compiz-manager-devel.x86_64 0.10.4-4.fc9
Jun 06 09:10:21 Installed: compiz-bcop.noarch 0.7.2-1.fc9
Jun 06 09:10:23 Installed: compiz.i386 0.7.2-3.fc9
Jun 06 09:10:26 Installed: compiz-fusion.x86_64 0.7.2-2.fc9
Jun 06 09:10:28 Installed: compiz-fusion-extras.x86_64 0.7.2-2.fc9
Jun 06 09:10:47 Installed: compiz-gnome.x86_64 0.7.2-3.fc9
Jun 06 09:10:49 Installed: compizconfig-backend-gconf.x86_64 0.7.2-1.fc9
Jun 06 09:10:52 Installed: emerald.x86_64 0.7.2-1.fc9
Jun 06 09:10:52 Installed: compiz-devel.i386 0.7.2-3.fc9
Jun 06 09:10:52 Installed: compiz-fusion-devel.x86_64 0.7.2-2.fc9
Jun 06 09:11:19 Installed: compiz-fusion-gnome.x86_64 0.7.2-2.fc9
Jun 06 09:11:20 Installed: libcompizconfig-devel.x86_64 0.7.2-1.fc9
Jun 06 09:11:20 Installed: compiz-devel.x86_64 0.7.2-3.fc9
Jun 06 09:11:52 Installed: compiz-fusion-extras-gnome.x86_64 0.7.2-2.fc9
Jun 06 09:12:48 Installed: compizconfig-python.x86_64 0.7.2-1.fc9
Jun 06 09:12:50 Installed: PyQt4.x86_64 4.3.3-2.fc9
Jun 06 09:12:53 Installed: ccsm.noarch 0.7.2-1.fc9
Jun 06 09:12:54 Installed: fusion-icon-qt.noarch 0.1.0-0.2.5e2dc9git.fc9
Jun 06 09:12:55 Installed: fusion-icon.noarch 0.1.0-0.2.5e2dc9git.fc9
Jun 06 09:36:18 Installed: xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs-173.14.05-1.lvn9.x86_64

And used the Livna versions of the new X11 drivers


Jun 06 09:36:18 Installed: kmod-nvidia-173.14.05-3.lvn9.x86_64
Jun 06 09:36:19 Installed:
kmod-nvidia-2.6.25.4-30.fc9.x86_64-173.14.05-3.lvn9.x86_64
Jun 06 09:36:21 Installed: xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-173.14.05-1.lvn9.x86_64

GLX would not start because the X11 system was finding the generic
AIGLX instead of nvidia's glx, but glx does work after moving the
"wrong one" and creating a symbolic link

mv /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
/usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/old-libglx.so
ln -sf /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia/libglx.so
/usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so

I'd encourage any of you compiz users to be cautious about using the
Super (Windows) key with the right mouse button, or else you might end
up in hell like me.

-- 
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas




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