I'm relatively new to Linux, so I apologize if I can't initially provide all of the needed information. Basically, I can enable Desktop Environments through XRender, but not OpenGL. I get the following error:

Code: Select all

Failed to activate desktop effects using the given configuration options. Settings will be reverted to their previous values.

Check your X configuration. You may also consider changing advanced options, -especially changing the compositing type.

My desktop information is as follows:

Graphics Card: ATI Radeon X1300 Pro (Driver: radeon)
OS: Gentoo Linux 2.6.32-r7
DE: KDE 4.4.2
Xorg is up-to-date also.

I've tried enabling 'Composite' under 'Extensions' in /etc/X11/xorg.conf to no avail. ati isn't available under eselect opengl list because I'm using the open-source driver. fglrx is no longer supported for my card.

glxinfo | grep render tells me that I have rendering enabled, and glxgears works for me too.

I've been searching Google, asked the Gentoo forum, and even went to #gentoo-kde on freenode.net to no avail. I'm hoping you guys can help me.

Unrelated: Another problem is that when I try to install a new SplashScreen image "Get New Themes," the image that I installed doesn't show up in my list that I can choose from.

Lots of splash screens aren't actual splash screens, they are links to other web pages where you can download the splash screen. The same goes for other downloads from kde-look.org. If you try to download those through GHNS (the interface you are talking about) it will not work properly. There might be other reasons for this behavior as well.

Ah, thanks. What about running Desktop Effects in OpenGL? I'm having no luck trying to solve that problem.

Edit: Desktop Cube, Desktop Cube Animation, Explosion, Snow, and Wobbly Windows don't work in XRender for me either.

The listed animations are dependent upon OpenGL support being available. I would recommend checking that you are using the appropriate driver ( the proprietary driver from ATi's website works best I think for ATi cards )

Hi

I had a lot of trouble with this as well, and it turned out that there is a bug in KDE 4.4. I cant find the mailing list about it, but I had to fix this problem again just 10 minutes ago.

The problem was that the check which is done to enable desktopeffects is somewhat broken. You can disable this check manually.

Open the file /home/<YOUR HOME FOLDER>/.kde4/share/config/kwinrc and set DisableChecks=true
You can enable it there as well righ away Enabled=true

When you enabled it in the file, restart X-Server, otherwise go to system settings and enable the effects.

Hope that helps, at least it did for me after I reinstalled all kinds of drivers with no success

Have you reported this, including which graphics card and driver in use to bugs.kde.org? Note that due to driver instabilities some cards are deliberately black listed.

There was already an official bug to this, I just couldnt find it again.

I am runinng two ATI HD2900 Pro in Crossfire, and I had this problem before with one HD2900 Pro card as well. The card was working on 4.3 and composting was disabled when I upgraded to 4.4 (OpenSuse 11.2), so I would say the card is not blacklisted (and it is running smoothly as it should now).