I thought, now that Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy” is released, I’d update the basic configuration suggestions and hopefully help a few more of you get your bling-on.

The Compiz-Check Script

Recently I saw a post over at Forlong’s Blog releasing a script that will check your hardware in regards to Compiz support.  From the article:

Compiz-Check is a script to test if Compiz is able to run on your system/setup and if not, it will tell you the reason why.

If you’ve had issues with Compiz support in the past I’d suggest running this script and pay attention to the output towards reasons why it appears to be unsupported.  In some cases it is simply a matter of poor hardware.  In other cases its only a matter of software changes, and may help you get things going.

To download and run the script:

wget http://blogage.de/files/3729/download -O compiz-check

chmod +x compiz-check

./compiz-check

If everything comes out as “OK” you should be able to activate Compiz as seen in the Compiz configuration instructions.

Driver Support With Envy

Another very useful tool I’ve found is the Envy tool, which will install required non-free driver support for nvidia or ATI cards for you.  I’ll admit that I’ve only used this occasionally, considering I have intel graphics cards on my main laptops, but in the situations where I have needed it things have worked great.

If you are using Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy” you can try the newer EnvyNG, which is available in the universe repository.  How to install EnvyNG on Ubuntu 8.04.

If you are still using a previous version of Ubuntu you can try the legacy version of Envy, instructions here.

Are there any other common tips that I’ve missed?  If you know of any other great resources for Compiz support tests, nvidia or ATI driver installation, or basic Compiz tweaks please comment and share with the rest of us.