Suddenly, just within the past week or two, definitely since I reinstalled my OS, I am seeing this thing called compton-tde running always near the top of top. It doesn't seem to do anything special or new, yet it is new to me, always to be seeing it.
I thought, Well, it's been a long time since I really messed up my system, but I will fear no unknown software. So I killed the process, it disappeared, and I cannot detect any change in my system, except that compton-tde no longer appears in top.
I did do a search for compton<-without-tde>, but this tells me nothing more. It does something important, one supposes, but we know not what.
Bill
On Monday 01 June 2026 03:41:25 William Morder via tde-users wrote:
Suddenly, just within the past week or two, definitely since I reinstalled my OS, I am seeing this thing called compton-tde running always near the top of top. It doesn't seem to do anything special or new, yet it is new to me, always to be seeing it.
I thought, Well, it's been a long time since I really messed up my system, but I will fear no unknown software. So I killed the process, it disappeared, and I cannot detect any change in my system, except that compton-tde no longer appears in top.
I did do a search for compton<-without-tde>, but this tells me nothing more. It does something important, one supposes, but we know not what.
Bill
AI tells me "Compton X11 compositor, a lightweight program that provides window effects like shadows, transparency, and fading."
I don't see compton on the list of my running processes, maybe your X settings are different.
Thierry
Anno domini 2026 Mon, 1 Jun 08:04:27 +0200 Thierry de Coulon via tde-users scripsit:
On Monday 01 June 2026 03:41:25 William Morder via tde-users wrote:
Suddenly, just within the past week or two, definitely since I reinstalled my OS, I am seeing this thing called compton-tde running always near the top of top. It doesn't seem to do anything special or new, yet it is new to me, always to be seeing it.
I thought, Well, it's been a long time since I really messed up my system, but I will fear no unknown software. So I killed the process, it disappeared, and I cannot detect any change in my system, except that compton-tde no longer appears in top.
I did do a search for compton<-without-tde>, but this tells me nothing more. It does something important, one supposes, but we know not what.
Bill
AI tells me "Compton X11 compositor, a lightweight program that provides window effects like shadows, transparency, and fading."
It's the good old composition manager that's responsibe for "real" transparency and most of all dropshadows. It comes from the times of wobbeling windows and turning cube deskop switchers ... IMO it's enabled when you use "real" transparency for konsol etc. If you don't need dropshadows then diable all dropshadow stuff in kcontrol and killl comptopn-tde :) Oh, there are two kinds of dropshadows in kontrol, don't remember which one to use ...
Description: compositor for X11, based on xcompmgr compton is a compositor for X11, based on xcompmgr. In addition to shadows, fading and translucency, compton implements window frame opacity control, inactive window transparency, and shadows on argb windows. Homepage: https://github.com/chjj/compton Tags: role::program, x11::composite-manager
Nik
I don't see compton on the list of my running processes, maybe your X settings are different.
Thierry ____________________________________________________ tde-users mailing list -- users@trinitydesktop.org To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@trinitydesktop.org Web mail archive available at https://mail.trinitydesktop.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/users@trinitydeskto...
On Monday 01 June 2026 00:10:21 Dr. Nikolaus Klepp via tde-users wrote:
Anno domini 2026 Mon, 1 Jun 08:04:27 +0200
Thierry de Coulon via tde-users scripsit:
On Monday 01 June 2026 03:41:25 William Morder via tde-users wrote:
Suddenly, just within the past week or two, definitely since I reinstalled my OS, I am seeing this thing called compton-tde running always near the top of top. It doesn't seem to do anything special or new, yet it is new to me, always to be seeing it.
I thought, Well, it's been a long time since I really messed up my system, but I will fear no unknown software. So I killed the process, it disappeared, and I cannot detect any change in my system, except that compton-tde no longer appears in top.
I did do a search for compton<-without-tde>, but this tells me nothing more. It does something important, one supposes, but we know not what.
Bill
AI tells me "Compton X11 compositor, a lightweight program that provides window effects like shadows, transparency, and fading."
It's the good old composition manager that's responsibe for "real" transparency and most of all dropshadows. It comes from the times of wobbeling windows and turning cube deskop switchers ... IMO it's enabled when you use "real" transparency for konsol etc. If you don't need dropshadows then diable all dropshadow stuff in kcontrol and killl comptopn-tde :) Oh, there are two kinds of dropshadows in kontrol, don't remember which one to use ...
Description: compositor for X11, based on xcompmgr compton is a compositor for X11, based on xcompmgr. In addition to shadows, fading and translucency, compton implements window frame opacity control, inactive window transparency, and shadows on argb windows. Homepage: https://github.com/chjj/compton Tags: role::program, x11::composite-manager
Nik
But where does this compton-tde hide? Can it be removed or disabled completely? It seems to slow down my system, because that's the only difference I notice when I kill it. It may be that I don't actually use anything for which I need it, but somehow compton-tde just started appearing out of nowhere, and now always runs near the top of top until I kill the process. Then it never returns, and I never miss it.
I don't want to remove it completely, if it actually does something that I might need; but I can at least disable it.
You mentioned using kcontrol to change features such as transparency and dropshadows. Running kcontrol turns out to be the Trinity Control Center, and I already know that place. But when I look at windows, fonts, etc., I already have everything stripped down almost to pre-KDE3 levels.
I don't see compton on the list of my running processes, maybe your X settings are different.
Thierry
From my little bit of research, I gathered that most processes that have comp- somewhere in the name often refer to some kind of compositor, thus they change the appearance of windows ... transparency, shadows, etc.
I don't use fancy desktop effects -- or I don't think so -- and try to keep my system as low in usage of resources as possible. It looks like an art-school dropout tried to slap a quick coat of paint on an old retro system. But I kinda like that.
On the other hand, I tax my system's resources almost to the brink, what with sometimes 50 documents open in KPDF, likewise in OpenOffice, as well as sometimes, when I am on a research binge, or just got lost websurfing, I somehow end up with about as many tabs open in my browser, and forget how and why I got there.
The main thing is, I would like to disable or remove compton-tde, if I don't actually use it, rather than having to kill the process every time I start up.
Bill
Anno domini 2026 Mon, 1 Jun 16:17:59 -0700 William Morder via tde-users scripsit:
On Monday 01 June 2026 00:10:21 Dr. Nikolaus Klepp via tde-users wrote:
Anno domini 2026 Mon, 1 Jun 08:04:27 +0200
Thierry de Coulon via tde-users scripsit:
On Monday 01 June 2026 03:41:25 William Morder via tde-users wrote:
Suddenly, just within the past week or two, definitely since I reinstalled my OS, I am seeing this thing called compton-tde running always near the top of top. It doesn't seem to do anything special or new, yet it is new to me, always to be seeing it.
I thought, Well, it's been a long time since I really messed up my system, but I will fear no unknown software. So I killed the process, it disappeared, and I cannot detect any change in my system, except that compton-tde no longer appears in top.
I did do a search for compton<-without-tde>, but this tells me nothing more. It does something important, one supposes, but we know not what.
Bill
AI tells me "Compton X11 compositor, a lightweight program that provides window effects like shadows, transparency, and fading."
It's the good old composition manager that's responsibe for "real" transparency and most of all dropshadows. It comes from the times of wobbeling windows and turning cube deskop switchers ... IMO it's enabled when you use "real" transparency for konsol etc. If you don't need dropshadows then diable all dropshadow stuff in kcontrol and killl comptopn-tde :) Oh, there are two kinds of dropshadows in kontrol, don't remember which one to use ...
Description: compositor for X11, based on xcompmgr compton is a compositor for X11, based on xcompmgr. In addition to shadows, fading and translucency, compton implements window frame opacity control, inactive window transparency, and shadows on argb windows. Homepage: https://github.com/chjj/compton Tags: role::program, x11::composite-manager
Nik
But where does this compton-tde hide? Can it be removed or disabled completely? It seems to slow down my system, because that's the only difference I notice when I kill it. It may be that I don't actually use anything for which I need it, but somehow compton-tde just started appearing out of nowhere, and now always runs near the top of top until I kill the process. Then it never returns, and I never miss it.
it's hiding inside of the "twin-trinity" package. IMO it gets activated when you select something needing transparency or dropshadows, like "tcontrol->Appearence->WindowDecoration->Shadows" or konsole or terminator. I just noticed that it's in deed running on my systems as well. IIRC I used "xcompmgr" ages ago 'cause it was more lightweight than compton on i915 hardware, but that's been a decade ago. Anyway, you can just rename /opt/trinity/bin/compton-tde to something different and it's gone.
I don't want to remove it completely, if it actually does something that I might need; but I can at least disable it.
If you don't need dropshadows or true transparency you'll be fine without it.
/opt/trinity/share/doc/tde/HTML/en/tdelibs-apidocs/tdecore/html/kdetcompmgr_8cpp_source.html mentions "UseTranslucency", so you might succeed when you modify ~/.trinity/share/config/twinrc and change "UseTranslucency=true" to "UseTranslucency=false" ... or play with the other transucency settings :)
Nik
You mentioned using kcontrol to change features such as transparency and dropshadows. Running kcontrol turns out to be the Trinity Control Center, and I already know that place. But when I look at windows, fonts, etc., I already have everything stripped down almost to pre-KDE3 levels.
I don't see compton on the list of my running processes, maybe your X settings are different.
Thierry
From my little bit of research, I gathered that most processes that have comp-
somewhere in the name often refer to some kind of compositor, thus they change the appearance of windows ... transparency, shadows, etc.
I don't use fancy desktop effects -- or I don't think so -- and try to keep my system as low in usage of resources as possible. It looks like an art-school dropout tried to slap a quick coat of paint on an old retro system. But I kinda like that.
On the other hand, I tax my system's resources almost to the brink, what with sometimes 50 documents open in KPDF, likewise in OpenOffice, as well as sometimes, when I am on a research binge, or just got lost websurfing, I somehow end up with about as many tabs open in my browser, and forget how and why I got there.
The main thing is, I would like to disable or remove compton-tde, if I don't actually use it, rather than having to kill the process every time I start up.
Bill
tde-users mailing list -- users@trinitydesktop.org To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@trinitydesktop.org Web mail archive available at https://mail.trinitydesktop.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/users@trinitydeskto...
On Tuesday 02 June 2026 10:46:34 Dr. Nikolaus Klepp via tde-users wrote:
rename /opt/trinity/bin/compton-tde to something different
Over all, I believe probably just renaming compton-tde to something else, e.g. compton-tde-X. We'll see when I restart the computer later.
As for disabling transparency, dropshadows, etc. ... I don't use anything like that, so far as I can tell. As I said, I have stripped all the fancy desktop effects, so that (except for my colors, my choice of art work, etc.), if you looked at my desktop naked (without the coat of paint I've slapped on), it would look sort of like pre-KDE3. I don't think I could make it more minimal as far as system resources are concerned.
Bill
On Mon, 1 Jun 2026 16:17:59 -0700 William Morder via tde-users users@trinitydesktop.org wrote:
But where does this compton-tde hide? Can it be removed or disabled completely? It seems to slow down my system, because that's the only difference I notice when I kill it. It may be that I don't actually use anything for which I need it, but somehow compton-tde just started appearing out of nowhere, and now always runs near the top of top until I kill the process. Then it never returns, and I never miss it.
I don't want to remove it completely, if it actually does something that I might need; but I can at least disable it.
You mentioned using kcontrol to change features such as transparency and dropshadows. Running kcontrol turns out to be the Trinity Control Center, and I already know that place. But when I look at windows, fonts, etc., I already have everything stripped down almost to pre-KDE3 levels.
Trinity Control Center -> Desktop -> Windows Behavior -> Translucency disable checkbox at the top
-
Dr. Nikolaus Klepp -
Nick Koretsky -
Thierry de Coulon -
William Morder