Information about Using DrJava with Compiz

Introduction

Compiz is a window manager for the X Window System on Linux. It uses 3D graphics hardware to display windows and special effects.

Unfortunately, using Compiz together with the Swing GUI library in Java older than Java 6.0_20 causes problems (see bug report): DrJava or your entire system may crash.

It seems Sun/Oracle fixed this problem in Java 6.0_20. We therefore suggest that you upgrade your version of Java to Java 6.0_20 or newer. If you

This issue is caused by an incompatibility between Compiz and Java, and we, the developers of DrJava, cannot do anything to fix this problem. If you still experience problems after upgrading to Java 6.0_20 or newer, we recommend that you disable Compiz. We also suggest that you use the latest versions of Compiz and Java, so you can benefit from possible bug fixes made by Sun/Oracle and the Compiz developers.

Below, we have instructions for some common Linux distributions.

Update Java

Please follow the instructions to install Java for Linux developed by Sun/Oracle.

Disable Compiz on Ubuntu

On Ubuntu (7.10 or newer), please do the following to disable Compiz:

  1. Click on the System menu.
  2. Select Preferences.
  3. Select Appearance.
  4. Display the Visual Effects tab.
  5. Select None.
  6. Close the Appearance Preferences window.

Disable Compiz from the Terminal

Open a Terminal (or Console or Command Line Window) and type the following to disable Compiz: 

  metacity --replace &
This assumes that you have the Metacity window manager installed on your system.

References

Hosted by SourceForge.net DrJava has been partially funded by the National Science Foundation, the Texas Advanced Technology Program, and Sun Microsystems, Inc.