#62. Kevin on 23 March 2008

@ rafael: This seems to be your problem:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=436110

#61. rafael on 21 March 2008

hi,

i've gutsy, and i installed compiz. But when i go to * System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Visual Effects -> Custom -> Preferences , it pop-us a message: The Composite extension is not available... what is that? anyone?

#60. Saurabh on 12 March 2008

Thanks Kevin for the help I will do that [:D],thats the last option afterall, but before that I might try upgrading by popping in Gutsy CD, maybe because the OS upgrade url in the list shows that as the upgrade repository.
Will post if I find someting interesting.

Thanks much for your help

... [more] Regards

#59. Kevin on 12 March 2008

@ Saurabh: Doesn't look to good Saurabh. The lsbrelease really tells me you're running debian, but the sources.list tells me you're running feisty. So that's messed up. What also is messed up, is your sources.list itsself. You only need this:

# normal ubuntu
deb http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-security main restricted universe multiverse

But I guess that won't solve anything. Maybe you accidentally copied your debian config over your ubuntu config somehow. My guess is you will end up reinstalling :(

#58. Saurabh on 12 March 2008

@Kevin,

I know its sounds strange but I m running this Feisty for over a year now.I have Etch and even gutsy,running on other systems and I can differentiate between them.I am an Ubuntu User since 5.04.Anyways I can paste my /etc/apt/sources.list file here you can check and tell me:

# See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to
... [more] # newer versions of the distribution.

deb cdrom:[Ubuntu 7.10 _Gutsy Gibbon_ - Release i386 (20071016)]/ gutsy main restricted
deb http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty main restricted
deb-src http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty main restricted

## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the
## distribution.
deb http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-updates main restricted
deb-src http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-updates main restricted

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in
## universe WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu security
## team.
deb http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty universe
deb-src http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty universe

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in
## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu
## security team.
deb http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty multiverse
deb-src http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'backports'
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
# deb http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-backports main restricted universe multiverse
# deb-src http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-backports main restricted universe multiverse

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty-security multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty-security multiverse

deb http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-security main restricted universe multiverse

#57. Kevin on 12 March 2008

@ Saurabh: Seems to me you're not running Ubuntu.
But Debian. Etch is the latest stable version of Debian so you can't expect anything to happen when dist-upgrading.

And upgrading from Debian straight to Ubuntu by changing to Ubuntu repositories will most certainly break a lot of things.

#56. Saurabh on 12 March 2008

sudo cat /etc/lsb-release
Password:
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="DebianEdu/Skolelinux (terra)"
DISTRIB_RELEASE=3.2
DISTRIB_CODENAME=etch
... [more] :)

#55. Kevin on 12 March 2008

@ Saurabh: Almost seems like you're already running gutsy. What does

sudo cat /etc/lsb-release

say?

#54. Saurabh on 12 March 2008

@Kevin
Thanks for the tip Kevin, I tried it but it showed the following message:

saurabh@localhost:~$ sudo do-release-upgrade
Checking for a new ubuntu release
... [more] current dist not found in meta-release file
No new release found

#53. Kevin on 11 March 2008

@ Saurabh: you shouldn't need to add the gutsy reps no. maybe you can still upgrade the server way?

sudo apt-get install update-manager-core
sudo do-release-upgrade

#52. Saurabh on 11 March 2008

I followed till the Upgrade, but I am faced with a Strange problem, My Update manager is not showing the OS Upgrade option, do I need to add gutsy repositories in the list ???

Even by launching the update manager by gksudo "update-manager -c" i m not able to see the new distro upgrade

Can you help me with this

#51. Trainfriend on 17 February 2008

OMG!!! YOU ARE SO AWESOME!!!! I can't thank you enough for posting this. It worked on my Gutsy / Nvidia system PERFECTLY.

Now to figure out all these cool widgets...

Thanks Again Kevin!

#50. Greg Jenkins on 12 February 2008

Thanks for article. Helped a lot.

#49. cvp on 07 January 2008

That's reassuring then... things did run more or less smoothly after that.
The only other problem I ran into was the gzip error just like the one found here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=587051
I had overwritten my sources.list (after backing it up, of course) with the four lines you've given, above, and so I replaced all instances of "http" with "ftp", and everything was dandy. Maybe this could help others who use your guide?

... [more] Thanks for your efforts!

#48. Kevin on 06 January 2008

@cvp: It's normal that compiz reinstalls, only this time, it's compiz from the official ubuntu repositories.

#47. cvp on 06 January 2008

Hey,
I followed this pretty exactly, with the exception that I'm running KDE (so I'm planning to install compiz-kde instead of compiz-gnome, etc.). But I haven't gotten there yet...
I got just to Step 2, haven't started it yet, and noticed that compiz and its assorted packages installed themselves again when I ran:
sudo aptitude -y install ubuntu-desktop

... [more] I figured something was the matter, that this wasn't supposed to happen, because installing compiz again is a future step, so I ran:
sudo aptitude remove compiz

...but then aptitude informed me that it would be removing a few other packages, and then settled with:
The following packages are BROKEN:
desktop-effects
The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED:
compiz-core compiz-gnome compiz-gtk compiz-plugins libdecoration0
The following packages will be REMOVED:
compiz
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 6 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 3342kB will be freed.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
desktop-effects: Depends: compiz but it is not installable
Resolving dependencies...
The following actions will resolve these dependencies:

Remove the following packages:
desktop-effects
ubuntu-desktop

Score is -292

Accept this solution? [Y/n/q/?]

...I chose 'quit'.
I'm going to tentatively proceed for now. :\

#46. Kevin on 28 December 2007

@ Yaacov: This tutorial is meant for nVidia, gnome, and people upgrading from Feisty who already have 3rd party compiz-fusion installed. If you meet those requirements I don't see why having a laptop or a mobile video card should make any difference because I think they all use the same nVidia drivers.

@ gotta.b.strong: Thanks for your remark. compiz-fusion-plugins-extra was in the list as well, but indeed it seems that the unofficial package has been removed from the repository, I will update the article, thank you!

#45. gotta.b.strong on 23 December 2007

First, thanks for the HOWTO:
In section #3, you have one of the packages named "compiz-fusion-plugins-unofficial" but there is no pkg named that....but there is one named "compiz-fusion-plugins-extra", so I installed that. Can you check that on your end and maybe update your HOWTO.

#44. Yaacov on 23 December 2007

How would someone do this who has Ubuntu installed on a laptop with a Nvidia 8700M GT card in the system???

#43. Kevin on 22 December 2007

@ Eric: This tutorial is meant for nvidia cards, not ATI cards, and shall not work if you don't make vendor-specific alterations.

Should you want to reinstall, save yourself some trouble and burn a Gutsy CD right away, not Feisty.

But you probably don't have to because this command:
... [more]
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

..Will rewrite your X configuration with a default video driver, so that should at least get you up & running again.

If you've made changes to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf before, be sure to make a backup of it so you don't loose them.

Good luck!

#42. Eric on 21 December 2007

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I have an ATI graphics card. I can get to a command line where I can enter a sudo command. Do you know of a sudo to revert this?
Thank you again,
Eric

#41. Eric on 21 December 2007

I followed these steps to a "T", only problem is that I figured I'd save time and updated the res following the command "gksudo nvidia-settings".
I think though that this is now why my graphical interface is not responding. please help, I don't want to do another clean install of Feisty
Thanks
Eric

#40. Kevin on 16 December 2007

@ Cariboo1938: Yeah you need compiz but the second time it's from the official gutsy sources. You can probably ignore the warning.

#39. Cariboo1938 on 16 December 2007

@Kevin: Thanks for the help and info. Yes it removed all kind of compiz, libcompiz and the ubuntu desktop. I restore it and, I wonder why it installs the compiz again:
Quote
The following NEW packages will be automatically installed:
compiz compiz-core compiz-gnome compiz-plugins desktop-effects
The following NEW packages will be installed:
... [more] compiz compiz-core compiz-gnome compiz-gtk compiz-plugins desktop-effects
ubuntu-desktop
0 packages upgraded, 7 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
End Quote
and I also got this warning:
Quote
dpkg: warning - unable to delete old directory `/etc/xdg/compiz': Directory not empty
End Quote
I am not sure if this is alright?

#38. Cariboo1938 on 16 December 2007

@Kevin: Thanks for the help and info. Yes it removed all kind of compiz, libcompiz and the ubuntu desktop. I restore it and, as you wrote, I'm ready for upgrade.
Thanks again

#37. Kevin on 16 December 2007

@ Cariboo1938: If you execute the statement without '| sudo bash' at the end, you can review the commands without executing them.

dpkg -l shows a list of installed packages
egrep filters to only select beryl, emerald & compiz packages
awk prints out only the second column of the package list

#36. Cariboo1938 on 16 December 2007

Hi Kevin
I\'m about ready to do my Gutsy upgrade.
I want to follow your instruction because it all sounds logical.
Because I\'m not familiar with the Linux commands, I have trouble understanding this command line:
Quote:
... [more]
Remove old compiz packages
This command will get rid of all the unofficial compiz-fusion packages currently installed. From a terminal run:

sudo echo \"Removing old compiz things (ask for sudo password now, so commands won\'t be interupted later)\"
echo \"aptitude -y remove\" `sudo dpkg -l | egrep \'(beryl|emerald|compiz)\'| awk \'{print $2}\'` | sudo bash

End Quote.

I would be thankful if you could give more details because I think the ()-bracket part is not a Linux command and I don\'t want to mess thing up by doing things I don\'t understand.
Regards
Cariboo

#35. Cariboo1938 on 15 December 2007

@Kevin: Thanks for comment #32.
I just mentioned the flash issue because sometimes things change so rapidly in this restless world and I'm never sure if I'm still up to date or not!

#34. Kevin on 05 December 2007

@ unhappy chappy: Why on earth would you run through this article if you already have Gutsy and running compiz-fusion?! Have you even read this guide?

This guide is meant to keep you out of trouble if you ALREADY have 3rd party components and are running Ubuntu Feisty.

#33. unhappy chappy on 05 December 2007

Brilliant. Thanks for wrecking my system.

I had the default compiz stuff running from the default Gutsy install, ran through this and now nothing works.

Both Custom and Extra settings result in "Desktop Effects could not be enabled"

#32. Kevin on 05 December 2007

@ Cariboo1938: Thanks! It's always nice to hear . About your flash-amd64 comment, I'll consider updating the article. On the other hand, won't 64bit users already know that flash doesn't work on their system? Cause sites like youtube and such don't work either. There just is no 64bit flash available. Cheers!

#31. Cariboo1938 on 04 December 2007

This is a great article and it is exactly what I was looking for since I decided to upgrade to Gutsy!
PS.:
Quote: » Every step begins with a flash video. Get the Flash Player to see this player.

This didn't work for me.
... [more]

It's not a bug, it just needs a note or remark:
<Not working for amd64 architecture!> or something like that!

#30. jport on 29 November 2007

nice job

#29. Kevin on 18 November 2007

Read the article, this guide is meant to keep you out of trouble if you ALREADY have 3rd party components. Normal upgrading will then break your X.

#28. good advice on 18 November 2007

read the first comment. this guide is a recipe for trouble.

#27. Kevin on 30 October 2007

@ nixbert: I don't think that happens a lot (purely based on my own experience), so I'm uncertain about recreating the videos with the ubuntuforums post's suggestion.

But your comment will certainly help people who do run into it, so Thanks for the tip!

#26. nixbert on 30 October 2007

Think another step might be needed in some cases (like in mine)

while doing a clean install xgl-xserver might also be required - (see thread from ubuntu forum)

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3636851#poststop

#25. neonheartjesus on 29 October 2007

Awesome! It worked like a charm! than you so much!

#24. ak9tyOne on 29 October 2007

Thanks Sorcerer01, what a life saver.
I took a look at Kevin's blog (this blog) minutes after updating incorrectly to Gutsy.

#23. Sorcerer01 on 27 October 2007

I've created a very small article at my blog

http://thesorcerer.wordpress.com

to solve problems for those who have already upgrade their system to Gutsy WITHOUT having used this guide... maybe it's useful for somebody...

#22. vedang on 25 October 2007

works like a charm!... ty

#21. Sean on 22 October 2007

Nevermind. I figured it out. There is a plugin now for resizing the window. It wasn't enabled for me.

#20. Sean on 22 October 2007

My DefaultDepth is set to 24. And the graphics on my screen are certainly higher than 8 bit.

By using the Emerald theme, I now get borders. My issue now is that I can not resize any windows by dragging the borders. Any thoughts on that issue?

#19. Kevin on 21 October 2007

@ SeanBlader: OK. There is one other thing you maybe can do. That's check the logfiles

- /var/log/dpkg.log
- /var/log/dist-upgrade

... [more] And see if you can find out what causes the crash. For example if it hangs on a specific package, maybe we can first remove that package before upgrading, and then reinstall it.

#18. SeanBlader on 21 October 2007

I had tried switching between desktops and moving the Distribution Upgrade window around, I hadn't tried ALT+TAB until this morning. Nothing happened, it just showed the one window. Also there's no terminal anywhere. All through the upgrade process it's grayed out and then when it gets to the point where it stops, the entire window goes blank. Guess I'll just have to wait to upgrade.

#17. Kevin on 21 October 2007

@ SeanBlader: I had a similar problem. Turned out there was another pending dialog hidden ;) Sounds stupid, but have your pressed ALT+TAB?
Or maybe can you expand the terminal and see what is happening on the background?

@ Sean: I don't have ATi but you need to have 24bit setting in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and maybe I think you're running in 8bit currently. You might be able to edit the: "DefaultDepth" option, and make sure section "Screen" also has got a valid "Display" subsection with a "Depth" of 24 and "Modes" that your system can handle

#16. Sean on 21 October 2007

I have the same problem as Joyful.

% compiz --replace
Checking for Xgl: present.
Checking for nVidia: not present.
... [more] Checking for Xgl: present.
Enabling Xgl with fglrx ATi drivers...
Starting gtk-window-decorator
/usr/bin/compiz.real (video) - Warn: No 8 bit GLX pixmap format, disabling YV12 image format

#15. SeanBlader on 21 October 2007

Distribution Upgrade stops with the status line saying "Asking for Confirmation" I assume that's during the dialog that says what modules I have installed that are not supported by Canonical. I pressed close, and it looked similar to the dialog in the video, but then the upgrade won't continue. In fact after that I can't restart the upgrade or do anything with the upgrade window except move it. And when I restart the system it asks me if I want to do a partial upgrade. I say no and it get's stuck in the same spot.

#14. Kevin on 20 October 2007

@ Joyful: We need to figure out what goes wrong. To do this set no visual effects. Open up a terminal and type: compiz --replace

It will probably give us some clues about what goes wrong so post them here and maybe we can solve it.

#13. Chali on 20 October 2007

Awesome step by step, thanx a LOT!!
Works flawlessly with my ATI card :D

#12. Joyful on 20 October 2007

the borders of all my windows disappeared!!! what should I do??
(I use Gnome, compiz-fusion and an nVidia card)
setting visual effect to nothing, the borders reappear but I can't use any effect ç___ç
help please

#11. iKiTuB on 20 October 2007

really helped.. works perfect... thanks

#10. Kevin on 20 October 2007

@ Erdeniz: My guess would be to replace compiz-gnome with compiz-kde. I don't think there are a lot of other gnome-specifics in this tutorial. But then again, I personally don't use KDE so I'm not 100% sure on that.

#9. Erdeniz on 19 October 2007

What about Kubuntu?

#8. Kevin on 19 October 2007

@ Gary: Appreciated!

#7. Gary on 19 October 2007

Worked like a charm on my desktop pc. I'm back to refresh my memory before installing compiz-fusion on my laptop (7.10 clean install).

Oh, and to say thank you.

#6. Arnold (http://blog.adaniels.nl) on 19 October 2007

I got black windows when compiz was enabled, while everything looked fine when disabled.
This was the result of using the nvidia-glx drivers. After switching to nvidia-glx-new everything worked fine.

#5. Kevin on 19 October 2007

@ dethis: Wine will just be upgraded. WOW, I haven't tested it but I can see no reason why it should go wrong. Try to google on problems with WOW in combination with Gutsy, and see what people are running into.

@ Tom: True. Partial upgrade should go fine but my advice would be to remove Envy again and reinstate nvidia-glx-new. Otherwise after your reboot you will a kernel mismatch again, only this time, Envy will tell you that Gutsy is not supported.

Then you can do two things:
... [more] - edit the source of Envy's classes.py and force it to accept Gutsy.

- Install the nvidia-glx-new driver without a graphical environment. Also an option of course, but less ideal.

#4. Tom on 19 October 2007

I'm currently following this tutorial and downloading the upgrade... during download I was bored and decided to turn on the desktop effects that come stock with feisty... as a result my computer crashed during the upgrade and there was a kernel mismatch with the nvidia drivers, so I reinstalled the envy drivers. When I started up it asked me to run a partial upgrade, I guess that is because I had already started downloading it?

#3. dethis on 19 October 2007

very nice man, but i have a question, when i update to gusty, will i still have my files that i have with feisty like wine and wow?

email: thegoofysk8er@gmail.com

#2. Kevin on 18 October 2007

@ spr0k3t: Okay good luck! ;)

#1. spr0k3t on 18 October 2007

Talk about calling in the fire department to put out a match. Get rid of every step listed in the "tutorial" and use the standard method of installing the software from the repositories and restricted driver manager. Takes about two minutes and doesn't require touching 3rd party applications/scripts from the terminal.