To get Compiz & Emerald working in Ubuntu MATE 15.04

Tips, Tricks and Tutorials Tips & Tricks
1

Okay, for those like me who cannot live without Emerald Themes and this is probably ADA (against developers advice) so use at your own risk. Here is how I got it all working:

  1. Turn off compiz and turn back on marco
  2. using synaptic package manager I UNINSTALLED
    MATE Compiz and then INSTALLED ALL of the regular compiz files
  3. Then I installed the library for emerald and then I installed emerald (and some themes):

(I uploaded a couple files you may need)

a. The emerald library engine: https://backup.filesanywhere.com/fs/v.aspx?v=8d69678f5b5e71b19fa8
b. The latest emerald: https://backup.filesanywhere.com/FS/v.aspx?v=8d69678f5a676ea970a0

  1. Finally, using compiz settings manager I placed emerald --replace in the window decorator and;
  2. In startup programs I placed a compiz entry: compiz --replace

Then I rebooted, ran emerald and chose a theme logged out and back in and

THERE SHE WAS!!!

CompizScreen.jpg1920×1080 177 KB

2 Likes
2

@BillS No, not against developers advice at all :slight_smile: Watch my introductory video about Compiz in Ubuntu MATE 15.04, it explains why emerald it absent.

4

I got compiz and emerald installed but I am having trouble importing themes (it seems like every theme file I downloaded has an error) and for the themes that I got installed using a themepack it isnt loading it. It looks like its loading something else even tho the net says it has no default theme. Please help.

5

Thank you for Emerald, it worked perfectly! Broke out some old style, saved Areo type Emerald themes. Great distrol for my old HP G62 laptop. Loving this Ubuntu Mate 15.04, much more than the straight Ubuntu Unity. Dan

6

Does this method work on 15.10?

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Works in 15.10. Thanks for sharing this tip.

Chrome warned me on the first link of possible malware, so instead I got the packages from here, which grabs them from Launchpad:

8

Google is giving a false positive on the first link.
It should be this one for the libemerald engine: https://personal.filesanywhere.com/FS/v.aspx?v=8d6c678d5c5f6d76af6d

Don’t know why they do that.

Bill

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I have a question ! Does anybody use UM 15.10 with webupd8 ppa . I can’t find emerald in synaptic or with apt-cache search but on launchpad it shows that there is a package for 15.10

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I use it with 15.10 and it’s quite nice!

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All I did was grabbed emerald from ppa:nilarimogard/compiz after updating all packages and it worked out of the box. I set the window decorator to use usr/bin/emerald and it worked.

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Replying to say I don’t use stock compiz anymore, so whatever I said here before should bs disregarded.

In fact, for the OP just rip Compiz 0.9 out completely and find my thread about installing Compiz Reloaded, if you’re interested. If you don’t think it’s worth the effort afterward, you can just remove all directories for compiz 0.8, ccsm 0.8 and emerald to reinstall compiz and emerald via apt-get.