Remove Compiz from Ubuntu

If like me you're running one of the recent Ubuntu releases (8.04 LTS) you'll still be experiencing the unfixed bugs in Compiz Desktop Effects, for me this results in Totem and Xine crashes, taking out the whole machine (power switch restart).

So as no official fixes have been made (even though its LTS!), disable and removing compiz is the workaround:

Right click on the desktop, select "Change Desktop Background".
Click "Visual Effects", click the "none" option.

Then issue these commands to remove the Compiz packages:

# apt-get --purge remove compiz compiz-core

^ It doesn't tell you, but compiz is actually still running, so you will need to reboot to benefit.

Tip: Want to track down that rogue process in the "top" or "ps aux" output? Track it back to the package it came from, so you can unisntall it:

# dpkg -S /usr/bin/compiz-decorator

Laptop is quicker, and no more video playback crashes (yet!) ;).

Labels: GNU+Linux, Performance, Ubuntu