Compiz Standalone won't start

Question

Hi, I'd like to run Compiz as a standalone desktop manager. The Arch wiki has a very short section on this, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … ow_Manager, which suggests all that's needed is to edit ~/.xinitrc to start compiz.
This doesn't work for me, and I simply end up at the CLI prompt with no on-screen error message or anything to indicate why compiz won't start. I'm not even 100% sure it is trying to start!?
If I try to start compiz from the CLI prompt, I get the following error:
compiz (core) - Fatal: Cannot open display
If I start with startx, X will start, but compiz will not.
Last edited by lightstream (2011-12-16 01:24:11)

Answer 1

By display manager, do you mean something like KDE, XFCE etc?
If so, then I would really like to just run compiz without any of these. I have got Compiz running OK under KDE, but it takes forever to boot up (ok 1 minute) and I just find KDE to be somewhat .. Kludgy (it has a dated feel IMO). Also there are some weird behaviours in Compiz under KDE. I'm currently using XFCE which is altogether nicer than KDE, but I can't get compiz to work with it at all.
Here's my rc.conf:
# /etc/rc.conf - Main Configuration for Arch Linux
# LOCALIZATION
# LOCALE: available languages can be listed with the 'locale -a' command
# LANG in /etc/locale.conf takes precedence
# DAEMON_LOCALE: If set to 'yes', use $LOCALE as the locale during daemon
# startup and during the boot process. If set to 'no', the C locale is used.
# HARDWARECLOCK: set to "", "UTC" or "localtime", any other value will result
# in the hardware clock being left untouched (useful for virtualization)
# Note: Using "localtime" is discouraged, using "" makes hwclock fall back
# to the value in /var/lib/hwclock/adjfile
# TIMEZONE: timezones are found in /usr/share/zoneinfo
# Note: if unset, the value in /etc/localtime is used unchanged
# KEYMAP: keymaps are found in /usr/share/kbd/keymaps
# CONSOLEFONT: found in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts (only needed for non-US)
# CONSOLEMAP: found in /usr/share/kbd/consoletrans
# USECOLOR: use ANSI color sequences in startup messages
LOCALE="en_GB.UTF-8"
DAEMON_LOCALE="no"
HARDWARECLOCK="UTC"
TIMEZONE="Europe/London"
KEYMAP="uk"
CONSOLEFONT=
CONSOLEMAP=
USECOLOR="yes"
# HARDWARE
# MODULES: Modules to load at boot-up. Blacklisting is no longer supported.
# Replace every !module by an entry as on the following line in a file in
# /etc/modprobe.d:
# blacklist module
# See "man modprobe.conf" for details.
MODULES=()
# Udev settle timeout (default to 30)
UDEV_TIMEOUT=30
# Scan for FakeRAID (dmraid) Volumes at startup
USEDMRAID="no"
# Scan for BTRFS volumes at startup
USEBTRFS="no"
# Scan for LVM volume groups at startup, required if you use LVM
USELVM="no"
# NETWORKING
# HOSTNAME: Hostname of machine. Should also be put in /etc/hosts
HOSTNAME="scarab"
# Use 'ip addr' or 'ls /sys/class/net/' to see all available interfaces.
# Wired network setup
# - interface: name of device (required)
# - address: IP address (leave blank for DHCP)
# - netmask: subnet mask (ignored for DHCP) (optional, defaults to 255.255.255.0)
# - broadcast: broadcast address (ignored for DHCP) (optional)
# - gateway: default route (ignored for DHCP)
# Static IP example
# interface=eth0
# address=192.168.0.2
# netmask=255.255.255.0
# broadcast=192.168.0.255
# gateway=192.168.0.1
# DHCP example
# interface=eth0
# address=
# netmask=
# gateway=
interface=eth0
address=192.168.1.102
netmask=255.255.255.0
broadcast=192.168.1.255
gateway=192.168.1.1
# Setting this to "yes" will skip network shutdown.
# This is required if your root device is on NFS.
NETWORK_PERSIST="no"
# Enable these netcfg profiles at boot-up. These are useful if you happen to
# need more advanced network features than the simple network service
# supports, such as multiple network configurations (ie, laptop users)
# - set to 'menu' to present a menu during boot-up (dialog package required)
# - prefix an entry with a ! to disable it
# Network profiles are found in /etc/network.d
# This requires the netcfg package
#NETWORKS=(main)
# DAEMONS
# Daemons to start at boot-up (in this order)
# - prefix a daemon with a ! to disable it
# - prefix a daemon with a @ to start it up in the background
# If you are sure nothing else touches your hardware clock (such as ntpd or
# a dual-boot), you might want to enable 'hwclock'. Note that this will only
# make a difference if the hwclock program has been calibrated correctly.
# If you use a network filesystem you should enable 'netfs'.
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng sshd network crond dbus httpd mysqld)
I'd appreciate any suggestions at this point, as I'm at a dead end, and Google is not helping.