How to en/disable Compositing in Metacity

I'm having a strange problem with renaming a file or creating a folder or document in Nautilus. When I create a new file, the Nautilus seems to crash, the window disappears, and Nautilus comes back again with the new folder/document created, but I will have to navigate to the folder. This also happens on the desktop. Renaming there is impossible; in nautilus also in in the icon view, but it is possible in the list view.


As a solution I disabled compositing in Metacity. Go to Applications System tools Gnome config editor and there to apps, metacity, general and en- or disable compositing_true by ticking the box.
Another way of doing this:

At the time of writing (Feb 2009) the following actions are required to enable compositing functionality in Metacity, part of the Gnome desktop. This compositing functionality should not be confused with Compiz, Compiz Fusion or various derivitives.

I have to say it works rather nicely on recent hardware although I have found it to significantly slow down on some older integrated laptop chipsets.

1. Execute this (Tells Gnome to use the metacity compositor):
gconftool-2 -s –type bool /apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager true

2. Appended this to the end of xorg.conf (tells Xorg to use compositing):

1.
Section “Extensions”
2.
Option “Composite” “enable”
3.
EndSection

3. Log out of your session, the changes should have taken place next time you log in.

Transparency In Gnome/Metacity

Go to Gconfig editor and open apps, metacity, general and check compositing_manager.
Install transet: sudo apt-get install transset.

Using Transset for transparent windows in Gnome:

This is just an extra little command. If you want to set certain windows as transparent, then run the command "transset" in the console. Your mouse will turn into a crosshair; simply click on the window you want to set as transparent. The transparency value can be anywhere from 0 (completely transparent) to 1 (opaque.) It defaults to .75, and back to 1 if the window is already transparent.

For example, if you want to make a window half-transparent: transset 0.5.

Now make two launchers in the panel: one with command transset 0.5, the other one with transset 1.0 and you will be able the transparency mode easily.
and call them transSet and TransUndo. And you