lightweight compositing managers?

[Member fab161]

Hello there,

I’m using antiX (runit) on a more powerfull machine (8GB RAM; 4 cores) because I really like small window managers like IceWM and the configuration the antiX devs apply to it. Sadly, I do have screen tearing issues by default e.g. when moving windows around, so I’m currently using picom as a independant compositing manager with the glx backend and vsync option enabled — this solves the screen tearing problem. However, IceWM (and other window managers/desktop environments too) feels way less snappy because of it. So I’d like to ask you guys if you may know a lightweight compositing manager for window managers. For example there are the compositing options of Xfce working great but those are very much connected to the Xfce environment..

Thanks,
Fabian

[Moderator caprea]

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Hi Fabian, if really screentearing is the only reason for you installing a compositor, it can perhaps also be solved in another way.
There are solutions here on the forum for intel and nvidia chips.
Please post
inxi -Gxxx

[Member PPC]

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Compton or picom (for antiX 19 or 21) – they are pretty light. If you install ft10-transformation pack, it includes a pre configured menu entry to start compton/picom with some nice default settings.

Edit: I run a fluxbox with ft10 toolbar/menu enabled and even with compton visual effects on, my way less powerful desktop than yours is incredibly snappy… I found no slow down when I run icewm…

P.

• This reply was modified 12 months ago by PPC.

[Member iznit]

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2 other composite managers packaged for debian: “xcompmgr” and “unagi”

[Member fab161]

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Thanks for your replies. Currently xcompmgr seems to do the stuff i want to — further i disabled showing the window itself in icewm while moving and this is pretty neat for now. Previously i tried compton and picom; to be honest i can’t see much difference especially when they are using the same backend (glx). But there is one thing i noticed: in the icewm session with rox it draws shadows as it should (same thing in icewm sessions without desktop icons) but when i use zzzfm it seems like its blocking the shadows. Kinda weird.

[Member fab161]

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@PPC icewm still runs as fast as it could i think, just the moving of windows feels like beeing slowed down by the glx backend.. the xrender backend doesnt do that.

[Member fab161]

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@caprea

Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520] vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
  driver: i915 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:1916 class-ID: 0300 
  Device-2: Cheng Uei Precision Industry (Foxlink) HP HD Camera type: USB 
  driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-9:5 chip-ID: 05c8:0383 class-ID: 0e02 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 compositor: xcompmgr driver: 
  loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
  s-dpi: 96 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 520 (SKL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.3.5 
  direct render: Yes 

[Moderator caprea]

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You can try this “Force the intel driver over the default modesetting”
https://mxlinux.org/wiki/hardware/intel-video-driver/

Your card is a bit more modern like mine. I use the intel driver for an Intel 4th gen, it saves me from screen tearing, which was really nasty with the modesetting driver.No compositor needed.

[Member fab161]

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@caprea thank you, exactly what I was looking for. By myself, I thought it would just be possible to fix this with a compositing manager. Default settings seem to be weird sometimes. 😉

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