Fix Compiz Slowness For Proprietary ATI Drivers In Ubuntu

If you're using the proprietary ATI graphics drivers and you're experiencing really slow maximizing / unmaximization of windows or slow Alt + Tab with desktop effects (Compiz) enabled, here is a PPA which is supposed to fix this for you. The package in the PPA should solve this for both GNOME and KDE users.

Some more detailed symptoms of this bug:

• Window Management: Unminimizing, Maximising, Full-Screening, Resizing windows and Switching windows (Alt+Tab) will noticeably freeze the screen for about 1 second plus. Your mileage might vary.
• Memory (RAM) Management: Secondary problem you might notice is memory leak and/or memory-clearing problem

To fix this (important: I didn't test this as I don't have an ATI graphics card!) in Ubuntu / Kubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, use the following commands in a terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:info-g-com/xserver-xorg-1.7.6-gc
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Then you'll have to restart X so log out and log back in!

There is also a PPA for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala users, but that's not as easy to install as the above PPA: you'll have to force the xorg-server package in Synaptic to version "1.6.4-2ubuntu4.2+backclear1".

Did you try this? If so, did you notice any improvements? Let us know in the comments!

[via reddit | the bug]