Member Avatar for steven woodman

Hi if anyone can help me with this problem it would be greatly appreciated.

I ve just installed kubuntu on my desktop as second os, my other is xp of course. During initial startup i came accross some problem because of my hardware. I am running an athlon 64 dual core but have installed the 32bit version becuase of issues ive read about 64 bit. So anyways i also have an ati radeon 1650 pro 512 mb video card which i needed to enable restricted drivers for in order to get my lcd display working.

Ok thats all backround in case the info is important. The problem is I went through a pretty monotonous task of installing xgl and compiz for my pc and everyhting seemed to work. But, when i enter the compiz settings manager to enable wobbly windows and some other eyecandy It tells me that dbus is not enabled and some plugins may not work. So I enabled the plugins anyways to see and sure enough threy dont work. However when I checked adept it say its installed.

HELP ME PLEASE :)

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Dani AI

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Brief expert summary: when CompizConfig reports “dbus not active” despite the system message bus being present, the usual cause is that Compiz doesn’t have a per‑user (session) DBus to talk to. The system (machine‑wide) DBus service is different from the session bus used by desktop applications and Compiz plugins. As suggested, the Compiz DBus plugin must be present and Compiz itself needs to run inside a session DBus; ’s note about ATI driver limits is also relevant because broken GL/compositing will silently stop effects like wobbly.

Diagnosis steps (use a terminal to inspect the session environment and processes):

ps -ef | grep dbus-daemon
env | grep DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS

If no user‑owned dbus-daemon is visible or the DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS env var is missing, Compiz won’t be able to use DBus plugins.

Quick workarounds and fixes: start Compiz inside a session DBus so it inherits the address. Two useful invocations are:

dbus-launch --exit-with-session compiz --replace
dbus-launch --exit-with-session startkde

dbus-launch creates a session bus and exports the address to its children; launching Compiz (or the whole KDE session) through it lets DBus‑dependent plugins function. For a persistent fix, ensure your display‑manager or X session scripts start a session DBus automatically (session startup scripts are the usual place).

Other checks to rule out driver/GL problems: verify direct rendering and OpenGL are working (wobbly requires working GL):

glxinfo | grep -i 'direct rendering'
glxgears

Also confirm the Compiz DBus plugin is installed and enabled in CCSM (as recommended) and inspect session logs (for example ~/.xsession-errors and Xorg logs) for DBus or GL errors.

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Member Avatar for steven woodman

However when I checked adept it say its installed.

By that i mean dbus was installed

Member Avatar for John A

Is dbus running?

$ sudo /etc/init.d/dbus start

Also, you might be missing this:

Member Avatar for steven woodman

yes dbus is running, but for some reason when i start settings manager for compiz it say dbus not active. Ive done everything Ive been instructed to do (using relevant forums) and compiz is working but some plugins (i guess the ones that require dbus) dont work.

When I use the command you posted it says * system message bus already started; not starting.

Thank you btw I thought it was running but didnt know how to check.

Any other Ideas? Im not having much luck with my search.

Member Avatar for John A

Okay, first, have you checked to make sure that the dbus Compiz Fusion plugin I said you might be missing is enabled? Second, what is the output of running echo $DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS ?

Member Avatar for steven woodman

nothing happens when i do that just returns to :
steve@steve-43b94b8c:~$

Member Avatar for John A

Since you seem to be ignoring parts of my posts, let me bold the section you appear to have missed:

Okay, first, have you checked to make sure that the dbus Compiz Fusion plugin I said you might be missing is enabled? Second, what is the output of running echo $DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS ?

Member Avatar for linux

John A, do you work for some tech support company?

Because you have the patience and control of a techie.

Member Avatar for jbennet

The ATI xseries has very limited linux support (i have an x1650 pro 512mb)

I am running an athlon 64 dual core but have installed the 32bit version becuase of issues ive read about 64 bit

yeah, good idea. x64 has issues with flash, java etc... meaning for home multimedia pcs its not a good choice.

Member Avatar for steven woodman

Ok, let me get something clear. Im not ignoring anything in your posts mr, john a but i have not been fully understanding them. I have been using linux for less then a month and when your say enabled im not sure what you mean.

When i run the first command you gave me it said that dbus was running, therefore i assume it is enabled. Maybe the compiz dbus plugin is different then dbus. If so please explain (if you have time of course).

When i run that echo command you gave me it didnt seem to do anything.

Anyways no luck so far, hope someone can help.

SW

Member Avatar for linux

He's asking if you have the dbus plugin for Compiz Fusion installed. Click the link in his post. It's not that hard. I know you're new to Linux, but Linux doesn't disable hyperlinks, last time I checked.

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