11

Are there any fast, lightweight alternatives to Compiz' Expo Plugin (which are compatible with / capable of running alongside Unity & Compiz) in standard Ubuntu?

I'm looking for sth that's almost 1:1 like Expo is today, in particular the alternative should feature

  • an overview of (four) workspaces, with a resolution comparable to Expo's
  • no animations

Drag-and-drop of windows across workspaces, on the other hand, is not necessary. Only if the additional resource/CPU-demand thus incurred would be negligible even on older systems, this feature would be nice to have; otherwise not.

Likewise, it would be nice, but again not necessary, if the Unity Launcher could be shown (hides on my system, when not in use) in that alternative's "Expo view".

PS: Does Lubuntu have an equivalent to Expo? What is it?

PPS: Rumour has it that Compiz has more or less been abandoned... :(

Community
  • 1
nutty about natty
  • 6,788
  • 1
    unity and compiz are stick together there is no easy way to replace compiz with any other like mutter –  Mar 22 '13 at 10:36
  • 1
    Why not to use Compiz Expo plugin? – desgua May 21 '13 at 13:26
  • @desgua try using an 21" full-res (1600x1200, or vice versa) VGA-connected external monitor with old hardware (in my case: IBM Thinkpad X41), then open a handful of standard applications (Firefox with >30 tabs, this and that) and try a speedy "expo": the system will sort-of freeze-hang and only eventually deliver the "expo" result, with significant delay. In contrast, without an external monitor it's almost always reliably near-instant. – nutty about natty May 21 '13 at 17:00
  • I understand now. – desgua May 21 '13 at 21:16
  • You should try e17. It will replace Unity entirely but it is worth it in my opinion. It is like getting all your resource back while still getting a pretty interface. – brim4brim Jun 03 '13 at 22:10

1 Answers1

1

As mentioned before, unity is stuck with compiz.

But if you are willing to experiment, I suggest the Gala WM of elementary

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:elementary-os/daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gala
gala --repĺace

I am unaware if this plays ok with Unity, I removed Unity on my mschine. I personally pair this with MATE Desktop.

For expo you would also need dconf-editor to tweak when its Expo is used. It does have default keypress but you can also assign a hot spot to activate Expo.

relentless
  • 11
  • 1