I have recently installed Linux Mint with lxde, but I very much want the walk-throug-windows (Alt-Tab) to be arranged vertically, and afaik KDE is the only DE that does that. So installed kde-window-manager (not the same as kwin?), with kde-window-manager as default. But now I can't login with that. (Luckily, it still works if I select lxde.) What might be the problem?

kde-window-manager is a component that works with compositors such as Compiz I believe.

You need to run "kwin" as your window manager, which may be part of a kdebase-workspace package.

DirkvdM wrote:I have recently installed Linux Mint with lxde, but I very much want the walk-throug-windows (Alt-Tab) to be arranged vertically, and afaik KDE is the only DE that does that. So installed kde-window-manager (not the same as kwin?), with kde-window-manager as default. But now I can't login with that. (Luckily, it still works if I select lxde.) What might be the problem?

You have to login to LXDE as usual, and add a script that executes «kwin --replace» at startup.

I installed kwin, but that didn't change anything.

How do I make a script run at startup? A bit of research gave me two options.
One was to put that line 'kwin --replace' in the file /etc/rc.local. So I did (as root) and logged out and in. With no effect. In the file, it says "In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution bits." But it already is an executable file (-rwxr-xr-x).
So I tried the next solution, to make a file called kwinstart, make it executable with '$chmod +x kwinstart', run '% update-rc.d kwinstart defaults'. But the terminal complains "+x: command not found".
So what am I doing wrong?

That's wrong

You have to start kwin when LXDE starts. «--replace» tells KWin to replace the current window manager, if any.

Or, as the LXDE wiki says:
http://wiki.lxde.org/en/LXDE:Questions#Window_Manager

Or, with a Google search:
http://blogs.koolwal.net/2009/09/01/how ... e-startup/

Ah, that did the trick! In my case it's the file /etc/xdg/lxsession/mint/desktop.conf, where I changed 'window_manager=openbox-mint-lxde' to 'window_manager=kwin'. And I get my vertical walk-through-windows. Thanks!

However, now I get smooth scrolling in walk-through-windows, which is possibly even worse. Oh dear. I thought that I could disable that by right-clicking the titlebar of a window and selecting configure window configuration > desktop effects > animation speed: instant. But when I do that (I first have to click 'enable desktop effects'), I get the following message:

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.

But how do I check the X configuration and what do I do there then? Sorry to bother you again. Or should I start a new thread?

If you do not know how to check X configuration, probably you should leave it as is. Instead, try changing some settings in the advanced tab, like "composition type", "window thumbnails", "opengl mode", xrender options, etc.

I read a tip somewhere to change from OpenGL to XRendr (under the 'advanced' tab). But that made things even slower. Which I solved by suspending compositing (under 'general'). Now, I no longer got the error message and I could change the animation speed to instant. But that didn't solve the problem. Under 'all effects', way at the bottom, there is a section 'Window management'. So I played around with those settings, but nothing helped. However, I now got a message (which disappeared after a few seconds - I hate it when they do that) saying that certain actions could not be performed.

1. Do you need composition(for special effects)?
1.1 If not, does KWin do what you want without it?

2. You do need composition.
2.1 But XRender fails with your videocard, so OpenGL is the only option. Set it and tweak the other advanced options and tell me how did it go.
2.2 You might want to disable some effects you will not use/want.

what graphics card and what drivers are installed?