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I recently installed Kubuntu 14.04 and available updates. Then I got several broken packages. I've already asked an question to fix the broken packages.

Now I noticed that I lost some visual desktop effects such windows background transparency on drag, outer glow on windows edges, smooth movement on windows drag, etc. which I had before I installed updates (I'm not sure if it is related to update installation though). Please check the screen shot below (open image in new tab or window for larger view).

enter image description here

You may see that the app launcher and the chrome browser windows seem flatten unlike the picture in the browser (with blue outer glow windows). I'm not sure this is somehow related to the other question I mentioned above. I guess it would be related to a failure of graphic driver packages or desktop effects settings, etc.

However, Desktop Effects and Workspace Appearance seems having settings they should have for Translunecy, Window Drop-down Shadow, Active Window Glow. Here're their settings:

System Settings >> Workspace Appearance >> Windows Decoration >> Configure Decoration >> Shadows

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System Settings >> Desktop Effects >> Translucency

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Here is the output of sudo lshw -c video:

*-display               
description: VGA compatible controller
product: Cedar [Radeon HD 5000/6000/7350/8350 Series]
vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
version: 00
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm pciexpress msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=radeon latency=0
resources: irq:48 memory:e0000000-efffffff memory:f7e20000-f7e3ffff ioport:e000(size=256) memory:f7e00000-f7e1ffff

In System Settings >> Driver Manager, the option Using X.Org X server - AMD/ATI display driver wrapper from xserver-xorg-video-ati (Recommeded Driver) is selected. And I confirmed that no fglrx* is installed in my system.

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Sithu
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1 Answers1

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I don't see any difference except color theme. However, all changes you describe come from either widget theme or window manager effects. Go to app launcher -> System Settings. There are two icons, Application Appearance and Desktop Effects, that encompass the whole topic. Keep an eye on those "Customize" buttons that tend to be unnoticable.
For example, Desktop Effects -> All Effects -> Translunecy -> Moving windows set transparency for moving windows.
Workspace Appearance -> Window Theme ->Oxygen -> Configure ->Advanced ->Shadows has settings for glow. By "Smooth moving" you mean either Wobbly Windows effect from All Effects or this bug.

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Barafu Albino
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  • Desktop Effects and Workspace Appearance seems having settings they should have for Translunecy, Window Drop-down Shadow, Active Window Glow. Please check my updated question with more screen shots. – Sithu Feb 12 '15 at 04:06
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    Does anything change on screen when you enable-disable compositing manager (Alt-Shift-F12 by default). May be it can't start? – Barafu Albino Feb 12 '15 at 07:12
  • Oh yes. Alt-Shift-F12 got it back. What is this configuration in System Settings? – Sithu Feb 12 '15 at 10:34
  • Desktop Effects -> General -> Enable at startup. – Barafu Albino Feb 12 '15 at 11:56
  • Unfortunately, it couldn't be enabled on startup. I got the error "20 desktop effects could not be loaded" and "List of effects which could not be loaded. For technical reasons it is not possible to determine all possible error causes. Desktop effect system is not running". – Sithu Feb 12 '15 at 14:18
  • Video driver problem. OpenGL is not working at the moment of startup, but does work later, so you can turn on compositing manually. I had this situation once when OpenGL was enabled by driver setting in KDE's autorun section - that was too late. Or maybe you just have mutually exclusive effects on. Try resetting all 3 tabs to defaults first. – Barafu Albino Feb 12 '15 at 17:31
  • I only encountered the error once. Now the effects loaded on start-up. It's strange. – Sithu Feb 13 '15 at 03:11