Use Xfwm4 instead of Compton

[ghost]

Gallium OS use Compton to prevent tearing. It is possible to avoid tearing with Xfmw4, the default Xfce compositor, since this "bug" has been fixed some time ago : https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10439. I can confirm that with the Nouveau and Nvidia proprietary drivers on my desktop I don't have any tearing.

Edit 02/05/16 : I can confirm that on my HP Chromebook 14 (Falco) there is no tearing !

It's still in git so to try it you have to build Xfwm4 from git. That should work to build and install it :

$ sudo apt-get install checkinstall git build-essential xfce4-dev-tools coffeescript pkgconf libgtk2.0-dev libglib2.0-dev libxfce4util-dev libxfce4ui-2-dev libxfconf-0-dev libwnck-dev libxfce4ui-1-dev exo-utils libepoxy-dev
$ git clone git://git.xfce.org/xfce/xfwm4
$ cd xfwm4/
$ ./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/ --disable-debug && make
$ sudo checkinstall -D make install
$ sudo reboot

Don't forget to disable compton from startup softwares to test Xfwm4.

There is also a request for the inclusion of this in Xubuntu 16.04 on launchpad : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xfwm4/+bug/1294600

I have not tried it on my Chromebook but I will soon and report here. You can of course try it too. It also should be cheaper on battery but that need test.

It should also need less work than using and implementing Compton.

[ghost]

I tested the latest Xfwm4 on my HP Chromebook 14 (Falco) from git and I can confirm that there is no tearing !

[ghost]

Some others potential advantages that Xfwm4 have over Compton (https://github.com/GalliumOS/compton) :

• VSync work well
• Unredirection of fullscreen windows

[hugegreenbug]

Until this feature is in an xfwm4 release, I will wait. Compton also has unredirection of full screen windows and vsync. We determined in IRC that performance isn't that much different.