How to make it possible to resize windows in Mate/Metacity

[Pennyroyal]

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxxrzc0
System:
  Kernel: 5.4.0-126-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.4.0
    Desktop: MATE v: 1.24.0 wm: Metacity dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 20.2
    Uma base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Inspiron 3585 v: 1.4.0
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 v: 1.4.0
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Dell model: 0CNMRV v: X01 serial: <superuser required>
    UEFI-[Legacy]: Dell v: 1.4.0 date: 05/29/2019
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 39.9 Wh (100.0%) condition: 39.9/42.0 Wh (95.0%)
    volts: 13.0 min: 11.4 model: SWD 0x34,0x30,0x35,0x50,0x00,0x00,0x0037
    serial: <filter> status: full
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: AMD Ryzen 5 2500U with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx
    bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen rev: 0 cache: L1: 384 KiB L2: 2 MiB
    L3: 4 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1544 high: 1923 min/max: 1600/2000 boost: enabled
    cores: 1: 1308 2: 1374 3: 1459 4: 1526 5: 1584 6: 1923 7: 1550 8: 1634
    bogomips: 31943
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Raven Ridge [Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Mobile Series]
    vendor: Dell driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: GCN-5 pcie: speed: 8 GT/s
    lanes: 16 ports: active: HDMI-A-1,eDP-1 empty: DP-1,DP-2 bus-ID: 04:00.0
    chip-ID: 1002:15dd
  Device-2: Microdia Integrated_Webcam_HD type: USB driver: uvcvideo
    bus-ID: 1-4:3 chip-ID: 0c45:671e
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.20.13 with: Xwayland compositor: Compton
    v: 0.1~beta2+20150922 driver: X: loaded: amdgpu
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa gpu: amdgpu display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 4480x1440 s-dpi: 96
  Monitor-1: HDMI-A-1 mapped: HDMI-A-0 pos: primary,top-left
    model: BenQ PD2500Q res: 2560x1440 dpi: 118 diag: 634mm (25")
  Monitor-2: eDP-1 mapped: eDP pos: primary,bottom-r model: BOE Display
    0x08e7 res: 1920x1080 dpi: 142 diag: 394mm (15.5")
  OpenGL: renderer: AMD Radeon Vega 8 Graphics (RAVEN DRM 3.35.0
    5.4.0-126-generic LLVM 12.0.0) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.2.6 direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD Raven/Raven2/Fenghuang HDMI/DP Audio vendor: Dell
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 04:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:15de
  Device-2: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel pcie: speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 04:00.6 chip-ID: 1022:15e3
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.4.0-126-generic running: yes
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.12 running: no
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 13.99.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.2.7 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
    vendor: Dell driver: ath10k_pci v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1
    bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 168c:0042
  IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter>
  IF-ID-1: virbr0 state: down mac: <filter>
  IF-ID-2: virbr0-nic state: down mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 3-2.4:5
    chip-ID: 0cf3:e009
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 3 state: up address: <filter>
    bt-v: 2.1 lmp-v: 4.2 sub-v: 25a
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 2.05 TiB used: 1017.03 GiB (48.4%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Toshiba model: KBG40ZNS256G NVMe KIOXIA 256GB
    size: 238.47 GiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter>
  ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: SSD 870 QVO 2TB size: 1.82 TiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 232.22 GiB used: 78.09 GiB (33.6%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-0
    mapped: vgmint-root
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 511 MiB used: 4 KiB (0.0%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 976 MiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2
    dev: /dev/dm-1 mapped: vgmint-swap_1
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 53.8 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 53.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): fan-1: 0
Repos:
  Packages: note: see --pkg apt: 5455
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dupeguru-ppa-focal.list
    1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/dupeguru/ppa/ubuntu focal main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
    1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com uma main upstream import backport
    2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
    3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
    4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
    5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
    6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/slimbook-slimbook-focal.list
    1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/slimbook/slimbook/ubuntu focal main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spotify.list
    1: deb http://repository.spotify.com stable non-free
Info:
  Processes: 436 Uptime: 45m Memory: 29.35 GiB used: 6.96 GiB (23.7%)
  Init: systemd v: 245 target: graphical (5) default: graphical Compilers:
  gcc: 9.4.0 alt: 8/9 Shell: Bash v: 5.0.17 running-in: mate-terminal
  inxi: 3.3.20

How to hunt down and change the setting so that it is possible to resize a window.
I have followed many google searches for things that are supposed to work, no such luck yet.
Desktop: MATE v: 1.24.0 wm: Metacity dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 20.2 Uma base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal
that should help track down which file is the right one to edit.
I have actually been able to widen the right hand edge scrollbar to something usable.

[billyswong]

May you elaborate more on your difficulty to "resize a window", something which is supposed to always work for every computer by default? My mouse cursor changes to resize-window mode when it hovers at the edge of a window or on the shadow around the window.

I notice you are running "Metacity + Compton" as the window manager. I remember Marco should have been the default and Compton is out of maintenance for quite a while... Personally I am running Compiz. But you may do a a parallel switch to "Marco + Picom".

[Pennyroyal]

The mouse cursor flips from no corner grab to corner grab and back to no corner grab in the width of a single pixel, it is impossible to get the trackpad to show the grab icon, it easily takes more than a minute each time I need to move something.
I cannot find a setting to change that. I have followed google links, changed something in the named file, but no change yet.

[billyswong]

Does your window manager draw shadow around windows? I took some test in Desktop Settings > Windows > Window Manager. Some options does remove the shadow around windows, and thus making window resizing hard. I am not sure what is the bug behind the shadows lost, but both "Marco + Compositing" and "Compiz"(which I am using daily) both give me the shadow, which provide me enough width to grab and resize windows.

[Pennyroyal]

Hi,

I am not sure what you mean, but I always seem to have a grabbable border on the bottom and sides that is only 1 pixel wide, and very time consuming to choose. My goal is to find where that is set to one pixel, then to increase that number until it does not waste my time every day.
So do you know what file that might be in, or what to search for in the system settings folders.

I have tried some files in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/ and /gtk-4.0/ but the changes I made so far have not been seen to make any difference

[billyswong]

In my screen, there is a shadow per window wrapping around each of them. I can grab the shadow to resize windows, no need to place the mouse precisely. Therefore I asked if you can see the shadow in your Mate desktop, and if the shadow can come up if you switch window manager.

[Pennyroyal]

On my screen there is no shadow, and I could find no setting that would cause a shadow to appear.

On one of my settings I found "metacity + compton"

[billyswong]

On my screen there is no shadow, and I could find no setting that would cause a shadow to appear.

On one of my settings I found "metacity + compton"

What is the result after you switching that setting to "Marco + Compositing"? Or "Compiz"? "Marco + Compositing" draw stuff in software, thus most stable. Meanwhile in "Compiz" I know where to set the amount of shadow, thus most flexible.

[Pennyroyal]

I need to research the choices before I change it, there were other bugs in the default setup. I do not want to have to start over with the tracking down of problems.

[Pennyroyal]

Well it seems I am in good company:
https://github.com/mate-desktop/marco/issues/533
and
viewtopic.php?p=1864028#p1864028

I am trying to edit what I think the theme is, but no luck yet...

Is there a way to nail down which theme is in use?

[billyswong]

Well it seems I am in good company:
https://github.com/mate-desktop/marco/issues/533
and
viewtopic.php?p=1864028#p1864028

I am trying to edit what I think the theme is, but no luck yet...

Is there a way to nail down which theme is in use?

By default we are all running Mint-Y theme. But the window manager may be running the metacity part, not the gtk part, for window borders.

For myself I am happy swimming in Compiz and I think as your APU is the same generation of mine (Ryzen 2200G here), upgrade the kernel to 5.15 (or LM 21) then migrate to Compiz is an easier solution then hunting down all those weird bugs. After tinkering, Compiz gives me alpha-transparency to any windows whenever I want so I can type while seeing the window behind. And also a screen magnifier upon just a key combo. Also intelligent windows snapping etc. The only issue in your case is perhaps it may cost extra electricity usage and shorten the battery time. But I really have no data on that.