I was wondering how stable compiz is with UM? I used it years ago and liked some of the effects, but I won't change from marco unless compiz integration is stable. What is your opinion? I have an integrated video
I have both installed. I have a soft spot for Compiz, it's very beautiful.
The point is that I have actually enough eyecandy already delivered by marco.
But sometimes i switch to Compiz just for the beauty of it.
Switching can be done on the fly without even logging out, it's too simple 
I must say that I think Compiz is in a pretty good shape. It is well integrated in Ubuntu-MATE.
Switching between marco and compiz can be done on the fly in mate-tweak:
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Thanks for the comment. That really helps!
@tkn when I enabled compiz, the top window bar disappeared, The one where the close buttons are. Any ideas how to keep them when switching to compiz?
They should not disappear at all.
At least on all my systems they don't disappear
Actually you shouldn't see any difference at all when starting compiz in the default setting.
If you don't see your window-borders a.k.a decorations , it could mean that you might have silently broke a thing or two when customizing your rig or you might have some settings lingering around from some previous install.
First thing is clicking the button 'Reset Compiz' , that will set everything to default.
if that doesn't work try to switch to the default theme and see if your decorations come back.
Another solution is with CCSM (compiz-config-settings-manager) in mate-tweak: you can set the window decorator you want to use. You could try emerald after you installed it:
sudo apt install emerald
Thanks, will try that
what is emerald? Also I installed Ubuntu MATE on my laptop and Compiz works just fine-- seems to only not work on my HP AIO Envy 23. Perhaps the video adapter can't handle Compiz?
Emerald is a window decorator for compiz.
A window decorator is a kind of theming engine for the windowborders, titlebar and included buttons.
Also I installed Ubuntu MATE on my laptop and Compiz works just fine-- seems to only not work on my HP AIO Envy 23. Perhaps the video adapter can't handle Compiz?*
ah, this one
Intel HD 4600 graphics
Motherboard does not support discrete graphics
I am not familiar enough with that chip, nor with running compiz on it, that I can give a definitive answer, but it should be sufficient graphic power and abilities unless something drastically changed in compiz.
Maybe a driver issue, but that is just a wild guess.
If its only missing the window decorations, and switching to default theme before engaging compiz didn't help, then emerald could theoretically be a solution, it might give you the top window bar back plus some nice optional extras.
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I installed Emerald. This has not affected the Compiz manager not displaying the title bar/window controls.
It must be a driver problem or a major change in compiz since 2013.
Sorry that I can't give you a definitive answer.
After some googeling i found here
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=186517
that there was indeed a major change after 2013:
And I think I found a little bit of useful info here
http://wiki.compiz.org/
about compiz on intelhardware
http://wiki.compiz.org/Hardware/Intel#Supported_Cards
So, in the abcense of answers, what now ?
You could visit the Compiz forum:
http://forum.compiz.org/
If they ask for the specs of the CPU/GPU, give them this:
It contains pretty much all the info they could ask.
Yeah I can run Compiz, but sadly still missing some windows controls, application top bar. Interesting The window decorations work for some applications, browser and Thunderbird but not the actual control center widow and inside that compiz and emerald along with any other windows.