How do I re-enable shadow in Lubuntu 11.10?

Question

Does anybody know how to re-enable shadow effects in Lubuntu 11.10??

It was enabled at first (without any extra tool), but somehow I managed to disable it. Unfortunately I can't remember how!

Answer 1

Lubuntu doesn't have shadow effects by default. If you look at the Lubuntu website screenshots, none of them have shadow effects. Sorry.

If you do want shadows, you have a few options. The lightest weight option is to install xcompmgr. Here is the "how-to."

First, let's install xcompmgr. In the terminal, type:

sudo apt-get install xcompmgr

However, installing xcompmgr is useless unless you set it to autostart at login. This part is a bit trickier. The simple method is to create a .desktop file and place it in the directory ~/.config/autostart. Hint: if you don't know how to show hidden files, simply press "[CONTROL]+h".

Copy-paste the following into the desktop file:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=Application
Name=xcompmgr
Name[en_US]=xcompmgr
Exec=xcompmgr -c -C -t-5 -l-5 -r4.2 -o.55 &
StartupNotify=true

When you're finished, your autostart directory should look similar to this:

You might have other items or less items in this directory, but you should at least see the xcompmgr file.

One final note about shadows. You have a lot of options. I copied and pasted an example from the Arch site for the 'Exec' part of the desktop file. Play around and find something that works for you. I found drop shadows really slowed down my system. It's all up to you!

Credit: LubuntuTips