Compiz kills Metacity?

[Mercoledi]

Yesterday I installed Compiz via the Ubuntu Software Center to try it out on my Ubuntu 10.04 64bit box, but I uninstalled it after an hour because I didn't really see any differences except that everything felt a tad slower than usually. But now I completely lost any and all window decorations. And I uninstalled Compiz also via the Software Center.

I tried to re-install Metacity via

sudo apt-get install metacity

followed by

metacity --replace

I do get decorations back again, but also an error message that no theme engine was found under path "ubuntulooks". Also, I can't enter any more commands in the terminal, and closing it instantly removes decorations again.

The only way to "fix" this for now was to re-install Compiz again, which I am now forced to use against my will. Since then I've been searching the web for a solution, but nothing I tried has worked yet. All I want is to completely get rid of Compiz and use Metacity again instead.

[Segfault]

Not using Gnome myself, so I'm just guessing.
Whatever Compiz did was done in your home directory. If you create a test user and log in as test user Metacity will probably work as before.
At this point I'd install MC (Midnight Commander), open a terminal, run MC and start comparing your home with test user home. There has to be a configuration file which controls how Gnome loads - that's the file you need to fix.

[Mercoledi]

Alright, thanks. I'll do that as soon as possible and let you know what was wrong. Thanks again.

[Mercoledi]

Not using Gnome myself, so I'm just guessing.
Whatever Compiz did was done in your home directory. If you create a test user and log in as test user Metacity will probably work as before.
At this point I'd install MC (Midnight Commander), open a terminal, run MC and start comparing your home with test user home. There has to be a configuration file which controls how Gnome loads - that's the file you need to fix.

I've installed Midnight Commander and created a new user account, but now I'm a bit stumped and overwhelmed. It's literally been ages since I used a file manager like MC, and that was with an OS I knew well (some time in the mid-1990s on Windows 3.something). And the lack of any official documentation for MC doesn't make things easier. I'm currently working myself through a user guide I found on the server of the Technical University of Dresden (wish I could post the link ), but it was last updated on March 19th, 1999 - and that's not a typo.

So, if you or anyone else should happen to know how to compare the relevant directories/folders, I really wouldn't mind you telling me.

[Segfault]

Well, what I had in mind was visual inspection. For automatic comparison use diff.

[Segfault]

Seems to be similar problem:
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ubu...se-change.html