[DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

tknomanzr · 2017-09-23 03:41:11

I have things worked out for compositing in Virtualbox now. I will start posting the setups when I get a chance to sit down for a bit. i had a couple of questions before I start posting:

1.) Where would you prefer I post them? In this thread or someplace else?
2.) Are you planning to source the file in /etc and extend it in ~/.config? It just seems machine specific stuff should be in /etc for the most part and all the user level configuration stuff can then be addressed after the system specific stuff is handled. Since you can specify a config file when starting compton, you could build several, then the script logic figures out which config is most likely to work and loads it or prompts the user to select one from a menu of choices (probably a list generated from the files it finds in that directory.

Also, keep in mind, for configuration and testing purposes, I have removed bl-compositor and am working with just the config file. At the moment, instead of any performance profiles (which seem to not want to run in Debian at any rate), I am just documenting what works and what doesn't. There are some dependency issues with the phoronix-test-suite, so performance profiling may be on hold at the present time, unless somebody can show me a different way to go about that. There seems to still be issues with a number of python packages in Stretch.

Last edited by tknomanzr (2017-09-23 03:43:11)

johnraff · 2017-09-23 04:25:07

tknomanzr wrote:

1.) Where would you prefer I post them? In this thread or someplace else?

Let's start a new thread for your (and others') research results. Title, something like "Post your system-based compton configs and hardware details" (?), with a top post explaining that it's for the backend stuff - what options worked best with what hardware - and not for favourite cool desktop effects.

2.) Are you planning to source the file in /etc and extend it in ~/.config?

Not source the /etc file, exactly, but use it to set compton's startup options. (See the example code in the EDIT at the bottom of this post.) While the sysadmin would be able to add desktop effect settings here, the comments should make it clear that those are expected to be left to individual users in ~/.config/compton.conf.

I'm not sure if we want to complicate things to the point of having multiple script-selected compton.confs... Maybe just having a bit of documentation somewhere would be enough, as long as there's no fear of a plain 'compton' startup command + the default compton.conf actually breaking anything.

The command flow I had in mind is:

user launches 'bl-compositor --start' ( via menu or openbox/autostart)
> bl-compositor reads /etc/bunsen/compton_startup and, if any options have been set, adds them to compton's command
> bl-compositor runs 'compton <options_if_present> &' (forks to background)
> compton checks default ~/.config/compton.conf and applies whatever is there

Last edited by johnraff (2017-09-23 04:25:30)

tknomanzr · 2017-09-23 13:18:54

Ok. That makes sense. I'll start posting configs as soon as I am able. I may need to go through the sample compton.conf we have and oraganize it some such that the machine related stuff is grouped together. Atm, it is interspersed throughout the file.

johnraff · 2017-09-24 04:19:46

^Thanks! Please don't forget to also merge in our current default compton configs: https://github.com/BunsenLabs/bunsen-co … mpton.conf

johnraff · 2017-09-25 08:20:55

BTW bl-compositor has a handy option '--watch'.

If compton is already running and you launch 'bl-compositor --watch' in a terminal, then every time you edit ~/.config/compton.conf compton will be restarted so you can see the effects immediately. Good for tweaking.

(The new bl-compositor will watch our /etc startup file too.)

tknomanzr · 2017-09-25 11:52:00

Nice. Compton itself has some built-in performance testing also. I am not sure how accurate it is but might be moderately useful to dial things in. Interestingly, i had to reinstall my desktop yesterday. In the process, I re-upgraded to stretch and installed nvidia-proprietary. My previous compton.conf that was stored in ~/.config/compton.conf was hanging the desktop on boot. I have compositing disabled for now, until I get the chance to look at it. Keep in mind, I had not yet added the helium-dev keys and brought in new packages. I needed to take a full backup before I went much further, so I will attempt to work on this some today if I can get my schoolwork caught up.

Bearded_Blunder · 2017-09-25 13:53:19

Um.. me being me...
[sacrilege]
Has consideration been given to installing compton-conf ? Supplying users with a GUI for tweaking compton makes it much easier, even with recs (compton-conf-l10n) it only pulls in 188K. It has a handy "Apply" button for observing the effect of changed settings
[/sacrilege]
If whatever defaults are set are imperfect for a particular user, opening a menu item and changing settings becomes trivial.
I's not like you don't supply the GUI editor for openbox, users can still visit the config file directly.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2017-09-25 18:05:08

Bearded_Blunder wrote:

compton-conf [...] only pulls in 188K

Have you actually tried installing it?

It seems to be based on Qt (which is not included in BL) and I think it would drag in a *lot* more than that.

Also, how often would users need to change their compositor configuration?

Isn't that more of a "set and forget" one-off detail change rather than something to be frequently revisited? On that basis a GUI seems like overkill (but then I am rather biased).

tknomanzr · 2017-09-25 18:09:36

^ Dissecting it's source might be useful however.

EDIT: Helium-dev compton.conf has things working on my desktop again.

Last edited by tknomanzr (2017-09-25 18:21:01)

Bearded_Blunder · 2017-09-25 20:45:03

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Bearded_Blunder wrote:
compton-conf [...] only pulls in 188K
Have you actually tried installing it?

Of course, wouldn't have been able to quote the numbers if i hadn't. Terminal in that VM happens to still be open, so..

beardy@Helium-SystemD:~$ sudo apt-get install compton-conf
[sudo] password for beardy: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  compton-conf-l10n
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  compton-conf compton-conf-l10n
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 52.0 kB of archives.
After this operation, 188 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] 
Get:1 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian stretch/main i386 compton-conf i386 0.2.1-2 [23.6 kB]
Get:2 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian stretch/main i386 compton-conf-l10n all 0.11.2-1 [28.4 kB]
Fetched 52.0 kB in 0s (176 kB/s)        
Selecting previously unselected package compton-conf.
(Reading database ... 133710 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../compton-conf_0.2.1-2_i386.deb ...
Unpacking compton-conf (0.2.1-2) ...
Selecting previously unselected package compton-conf-l10n.
Preparing to unpack .../compton-conf-l10n_0.11.2-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking compton-conf-l10n (0.11.2-1) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.60) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.23-1) ...
Setting up compton-conf (0.2.1-2) ...
Setting up compton-conf-l10n (0.11.2-1) ...
beardy@Helium-SystemD:~$ compton-conf

Looks quite nice too, and first time I've been bothered to actually tweak any settings.
[edit] Nice colour picker in there too, always found picking colours by RGB a royal pain. [/edit]

It seems to be based on Qt (which is not included in BL) and I think it would drag in a *lot* more than that.

It is based on Qt, I found it by accident while playing with LXQt/Stretch while scoping out DEs for Windows users, should Win10 drop support for some of my family's old hardware as it already pulled the rug from under some Atom based stuff.

It appears not to need anything extra in BL, maybe because transmission is also Qt based and pulled needed deps in already? Pure speculation on my part.

Also, how often would users need to change their compositor configuration?
Isn't that more of a "set and forget" one-off detail change rather than something to be frequently revisited? On that basis a GUI seems like overkill (but then I am rather biased).

Maybe some would play with the transparency, shadows, etc., and other effects on theme switching, the GUI makes it very easy to do, which might actually encourage people to fine tune to their taste, it becomes in UK idiom "a fag" when you're visiting a text editor to do so.

Last edited by Bearded_Blunder (2017-09-25 20:55:51)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2017-09-25 20:54:37

Bearded_Blunder wrote:

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
Have you actually tried installing it?
Of course, wouldn't have been able to quote the numbers if i hadn't.

Yes, of course, my apologies, that just seemed like a rather low figure — I stand corrected.

johnraff · 2017-09-27 02:12:17

At first I was thinking, like HoaS, that tweaking compton was a one-off job that didn't need a gui, but:

Bearded_Blunder wrote:

Maybe some would play with the transparency, shadows, etc., and other effects on theme switching, the GUI makes it very easy to do, which might actually encourage people to fine tune to their taste

Agreed, and it is quite a small install (confirmed on a VM). If we ship GUI interfaces for openbox and tint2, no reason not to add this one too.

The machine-level options are not accessible via the GUI and still have to be set manually, though, which is no bad thing really. It just remains to check that compton-conf does not overwrite settings outside its control.

Bearded_Blunder · 2017-09-27 04:05:51

Indeed that's an important consideration (which I haven't checked) however, if it did I suspect people would be screaming "Bug" upstream. Rightly so! Doing so would be unpardonable, and solid grounds to not ship it, if it does. I'd actually be surprised if Debian shipped it in such a case though.

There are currently no Debian bug reports against the package though, I looked at that much.

martix · 2017-09-27 12:41:42

I gave compton-conf a try. Those two packages are a lightweight to install. There is a compton-conf.desktop file in /usr/share/applications, which uses the icon "preferences-system-windows". In tint2 there is the missing icon symbol for compton-conf, jgmenu and bl-obmenu-generator show the proper icon.

First I was unable to find it in the menu structure (looking for compton-conf), but it turns out it is started by the "Window Effects" menu entry. Btw there are also two other entries called "Window Manager" and "Window Manager Tweaks" but they don't start anything.

After installing it I noticed that there is a dark plank background (there was a transparent background before) and Tilix show properly the window frame (it showed a transparent frame before, which I could not change).

I changed menu transparency and it worked fine. I noticed that the "Apply" button does not seem to work. Menu/Preferences/Compositor/Restart Compositing makes the System Tray go away in tint2 (even if I restart tint2). I have to manually start clipit, nm-applet, etc. again to get them back.

After a restart I noticed that plank changed back to its former transparent background (just like Tilix to the transparent window frame). I did test the "Blur background" setting too and it worked as it's supposed to.

So these were my short experiences so far. Looks like a logical choice to add also this GUI to the menu.

johnraff · 2017-09-28 03:50:38

I can report that compton-conf overwrites the current ~/.config/compton.conf.
The good news is that all existing settings are kept, even those that compton-conf does not handle.
The bad news is that all comments are removed.

Bearded_Blunder · 2017-09-28 04:08:54

Well that's a bit rude of it, and somewhat uncalled for, in config files in general if I change some obscure setting, I'll often put a comment saying why, and stating what the default was if I come back months later and wish to revert to a long-forgotten default value. Just the same for compton I could live with it. Shame it does it that way rather than sed through to alter values and leave comments intact.

johnraff · 2017-09-28 05:26:39

We could start it up via a wrapper script that makes a backup copy I suppose, but they might build up if it was done every time the user changes something.

...or just the first time, to keep the comments...

Last edited by johnraff (2017-09-28 05:27:21)

Bearded_Blunder · 2017-09-28 06:47:52

Just the first time to keep the comments would suit me. Subsequent backups would be pretty pointless anyhow, comments are gone then..
But why a whole wrapper script every run.. just supply cpmpton.conf.commented.example if you're shipping with the gui installed, named whatever suits you.

For those who like manual editing, simply supplying both filenames to geany will have the "Edit settings" menu item open both in tabs so you have the example right there for reference.

johnraff · 2017-09-29 07:37:10

...or just drop compton-conf after all.

Bearded_Blunder · 2017-09-29 09:31:59

That too, it's not hard to add, assuming you know it exists, which I only found out by accident. It is very convenient for tweaks such as colours for shadows etc. though, if one changes theme or even wallpaper.

Wonder if it's worth filing a bug report? After all if I've modified a config file under ~/.config/ even just to add comments for future reference then surely stuff has no right to undo my efforts without either asking or warning? Especially if those comments relate to settings the GUI doesn't handle.

The idea of opening an example alongside the file being edited has me thinking though, are there other cases where opening a second tab with help or examples alongside the one being edited would be useful?

#21 2017-09-23 03:41:11

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#22 2017-09-23 04:25:07

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#23 2017-09-23 13:18:54

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#24 2017-09-24 04:19:46

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#25 2017-09-25 08:20:55

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#26 2017-09-25 11:52:00

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#27 2017-09-25 13:53:19

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#28 2017-09-25 18:05:08

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#29 2017-09-25 18:09:36

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#30 2017-09-25 20:45:03

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#31 2017-09-25 20:54:37

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#32 2017-09-27 02:12:17

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#33 2017-09-27 04:05:51

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#34 2017-09-27 12:41:42

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#35 2017-09-28 03:50:38

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#36 2017-09-28 04:08:54

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#37 2017-09-28 05:26:39

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#38 2017-09-28 06:47:52

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#39 2017-09-29 07:37:10

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

#40 2017-09-29 09:31:59

Re: [DONE][helium-dev] Compton startup options and bl-compositor

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