Compiz conflict crash

[Sleven]

I installed LMDE this weekend and am tracking Squeeze.

Everything seemed to be working great until this morning.

I was exploring the Compiz manager settings, turned the 3d cube on, gears with transparency, zoom...
everything worked as expected until I enable window reflection.

When I enabled window reflection the system locked up. I can reboot with CTRL ALT Delete but
then it locks up within seconds on moving the mouse. If I do not touch the mouse it seems to sit there and run,
I have the system monitor on the panel and can see activity until the mouse is moved, then it freezes.

I installed LMDE all by itself on a new HDD and it bypasses the boot loader screen or I would try to boot in recovery mode.

Any suggestions as to how to correct this?

[LifeInTheGrey]

When you boot up, right when GDM starts (when you can see the mouse), hit Ctrl+Alt+F1. This will drop you out of GDM and back to command line. Log in as root, and use your normal password. Once you are logged in, type in this command:

gconftool-2 --type string --set /desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager gnome-wm

And then after that, in case you have fusion-icon installed

apt-get purge fusion-icon

Once both of those commands have finished running, reboot. This will make the default window manager Metacity, and (in case you started Compiz the dirty way) prevent fusion-icon from overtaking it, so you should be able to boot as normal again. Go into CCSM, uncheck what you believe to be the culprit effects, then run this command in an open terminal:

gconftool-2 --type string --set /desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager compiz

This will change your startup window manager back to Compiz, and hopefully without the problematic effects it should boot fine.

[Sleven]

Thanks for the help Grey,

I made sure the command was typed in just as it is in the post. After hitting enter it just went back to the command line without doing anything. When I rebooted it locked up in the middle of booting (after the main screen but before booting was finished)

Went back to the cli and entered the command the same except with /Desktop instead of /desktop
again nothing happened, it just dropped to the cli without doing anything.

On reboot it is still locking up, but has went back to not freezing until I move the mouse.

?

[LifeInTheGrey]

It doesn't register anything when the command is issued, it just makes the change in the file. I know you just told me how you reinstalled and so hopefully its working fine for you now, but the command I offered is a much cleaner way to get compiz to run on boot. With fusion-icon, it boots to Metacity, then once fusion-icon loads it resets to Compiz, which really increases boot time because the window manager basically boots twice. I highly recommend using that command to set on boot, so even if you don't see anything happen in the Terminal, once you reboot you will be running Compiz. I hate saying this phrase but ... trust me haha.

[Sleven]

I created another partition and installed LMDE on the same HDD. I had planned on doing this eventually as a backup OS so it wasn't that big of a deal.

When I entered the, "apt-get purge fusion-icon" command, it said fusion-icon wasn't installed.

gconftool-2 --type string --set /desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager gnome-wm

didn't seem to make any difference in that the OS was still locking up seconds after I would move the mouse. If I clicked on anything in those few seconds, nothing opened.

I still have the broke OS installed, any other ideas as to how to recover?

[LifeInTheGrey]

Well, if fusion-icon wasn't in the system, and you set the window manager to Metacity with that command ... my guess is that your problem lies deeper than merely Compiz. You can double check by just purging Compiz altogether, but it sounds to me like a graphics issue. Honestly, if I were in your shoes, I'd probably wipe and reinstall. I hate to sound so resigning, but without Compiz as the cause of the problem, it could be any number of things.