How do I turn off effects so VNC can paint properly?

Question

On ubuntu 10 the VNC would not repaint unless you disabled the effects. By right clicking on the background and going to the effects tab then selecting "no effects" out of the three options of "no effects", "normal effects" and "Advanced effects" or something similar to that.

Now that Unity is here, there does not seem to be an effects tab nor any place to choose from these three settings? Hence the VNC not working/repainting.

Also, if I boot into the Ubuntu Classic mode (GNOME) the effects tab is not there either!

Are the effect options hidden away somewhere? or do they not exist any more, does it work another way now? or is there a solutions to get VNC server running with the "effects" enabled (the simple ones, previously known as "Standard Effects" or something along those lines, that come with the standard install)?

Solution 1

When you use Unity, the effects are ON and you cannot disable them. The reason is that Unity is a Compiz plugin itself, so if you disable the effects (Compiz), Unity will freeze up.

When you log in into Classic GNOME (GNOME Panel), you get by default no desktop effects (Compiz is not running). In addition, there is no tab to enable the desktop effects. However, you can still run from the command line the command compiz --replace & and get desktop effects. You can switch back to no desktop effects by running metacity --replace &.

Solution 2

SOLUTION for manually started vnc sessions.
if using tightvncserver
edit /home//.vnc/xstartup
comment out: /etc/X11/Xsession
add: gnome-session --session=2d-gnome

here's how mine looks: ~/.vnc$ cat xstartup #!/bin/sh

xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey
#x-terminal-emulator -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
#x-window-manager &
# Fix to make GNOME work
export XKL_XMODMAP_DISABLE=1
#/etc/X11/Xsession
gnome-session --session=2d-gnome

now your VNC will load a 2d (aka 'ubuntu-classic (No Effects)' ) desktop session instead of the 'default' ('unity fluffy 3D bloat that breaks VNC') desktop session.

note: this applies for manually started vnc sessions,
ie by logging in via SSH and using vncserver {{--YourOptionsHere}} to start tightvncserver.

P.S. I still haven't figured out how to start vnc before/during gdm login in v11.04, it was very simple to do in previous ubuntu versions (ie. v9.04) but not any more apparently maybe there's some fluffy 3d stuff in gdm that breaks the vnc session entirely? dunno.

P.S.2 I'm sure someone will pop in and say that instead of disabling /etc/X11/Xsession, I could use some looong string of parameters like /etc/X11/Xsession --some-magic-way-to-specify-gnome-session-and-the-specific-gnome-session-I-want ... They would be welcome to do so. But I haven't figured that out (..yet) :P