Ubuntu – Recover broken window manager

12.04unity

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04, 64 bit

I noticed that "compiz" was eating 40% of one of my CPUs and wanted to find its configuration. After not being able to find anything in the "Settings" with words compiz or similar (I'm used to 11.04 where I had 3 settings for fanciness of animations etc) I started googling. Most suggestions say to do this:

gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /apps/compiz

gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /apps/compiz-1

I did the -1 action and my Unity closed. Restarting the computer does not bring any window manager back up. I get desktop with 2 icons, and no window manager.

How can I solve this?

P.S
Shortcuts don't work. Alt-F2 does nothing, single tap on Alt, Ctrl, Super does nothing. To open a terminal I have to open a Desktop folder icon, then search for gnome-terminal in /usr/bin and open it that way. All windows that open up cannot be resized etc.

Best Answer

Open up a terminal by browsing to /usr/share/applicationsin your file manager and double-clicking gnome-terminal.desktop. Now, run unity --reset.

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I finally got Unity back at a normal resolution with compiz working as usual (apparently). It doesn't feel as snappier as before, but at least I can work with it.

This is what I did (hope it helps others):

Tried resetting xorg.conf file as @RobertPitt suggested (which, actually, did nothing for me).
Then tried what @Freedom suggested, but there was no entry inside the additional drivers tab.
Googled for a while and tried the steps outlined in this page and this page. After following the first web page steps nothing changed. As for the second page, I couldn’t get the ATI driver package to build.
Out of frustration, I got rid of fglrx with sudo apt-get autoremove fglrx --purge and rebooted sudo shutdown -r now.

After reboot, everything looked and seemed to work as usual. So weird.

By the way, I have a Radeon HD 3400 (RV620) card and there's still no entry for proprietary drivers in the additional drivers tab.

Ubuntu – Compiz – ctrl alt shift doesn’t move windows anymore

As cube rotation with the window is still broken you can use a workaround. In the properties of the cube rotation plugin disable the shortcuts Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Left/Right. Activate Put plugin. Then in its properties, in "Put to adjacent viewport" section set your shortcuts for the Left and Right viewports.
Instead of moving to new viewport with the window simultaneously now the window will move to new viewport and then the viewport will promptly follow the window. Almost the same functionality.

BTW, activation of some plugins in my system (Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS, GNOME Classic session and Compiz 0.9.7.12-0ubuntu2) with ccsm crushed my Compiz and cleared all checkboxes of my active plugins. Put was among them. In order to activate this plugin in more safe way you can edit the file ~/.gconf/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/%gconf.xml and add into it some lines directly:

<li type="string">
    <stringvalue>put</stringvalue>
</li>

Then reboot your system.
P.S. If you are not using Gnome Classic try another locations to find your Compiz config file: https://askubuntu.com/a/223905

Best Answer

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