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I'm using the i3 tiling window manager. As it doesn't do compositing, I've enabled the xcompmgr compositor in my ~/.i3/config file as well as feh to display a wallpaper:

exec --no-startup-id xcompmgr -c -C -t-5 -l-5 -r4.2 -o.55
exec feh --bg-scale ~/Downloads/Arch-Linux-Bluewave.jpg

Now lxterminal supports translucency etc. but when I arrange my terminals vertically, some ghosting, tearing and decoration artifacts from other workspaces appear to the top right - and disappear as soon as the window is tiled horizontally. Furthermore, when transmission-gtk "floats" a dialog box, moving that box around leaves ghosting in the form of tiny horizontal lines which remain until some refresh.

Is there any workaround?

  • Not a solution, but something I've noticed in my configs: when I'm trying a bunch of configurations, this can happen a lot in some of my terminals. I'm running `compton` as my compositor. To get rid of it, I simply **shut-down and restart compton** and it goes away immediately. In my particular config (which came standard with Manjaro), this is done using `$mod+t` to shut down compton and `$mod+Ctrl+t` to start it up again. – James Wright Aug 28 '19 at 15:40

1 Answers1

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The symptoms arise from two distinct issues here:

  1. The compositor: use something more recent like Compton in this case, with the following last options if supported by your hardware:

    exec --no-startup-id compton -cCGb --backend glx --vsync opengl

  2. The fact that compositors are not officially supported by this window manager and because of the way i3 renders window title bars. A well-known workaround is to disable such title bars by adding to ~/.i3/config:

    new_window pixel

To move around a floating window with no titlebar, use mod+drag anywhere on it. Finally, some of this may change over time.

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
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    In looking at the documentation for Compton ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Compton ), it looks like the -c argument enables shadows and the -CG part disables shadows. It seems that the -c part wins in this case, and can cause the i3 title bar to produce a shadow over the associated window, giving a strange effect. I've had better luck by omitting the -c portion. Example: compton -CGb --backend glx --vsync opengl – Matt Ball Feb 03 '16 at 21:11