Linux Mint Question- Windows Suddenly Go Transparent

None | March 1 2017 | Me

[Bob434]

OK- installed Linux Mint Cinnamon 18.1 recently, everything was working fine- then recently what has been happening is I'll be working along fine, and then for some reason, my windows go transparent- Icons are still opaque on desktop- but everything I open, card games, Internet browser, notepad etc are all transparent- even the shutdown dialogue is- Can't find any info online linux forums about this behavior- Any thoughts on how to fix it?

[Bob434]

The install of Linux 18.1 was clean install- not an upgrade- also a reboot will bring everything back to normal-

[JennysCool]

Sheesh, everything’s going trans these days!

[TChad]

Suggestions here:

https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/3463

[cba123]

Are you anywhere near full disk capacity on the machine?

I’ve seen behavior like that when I am near capacity on the system.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

I am not trans and run ubuntu. Run ubuntu Lots more support. Mint looks like windows but it is not. Mint it training wheels for linux. At least with ubuntu you get a big boys bike with lots of support. I run it case I hardly ever have to Ctrl Alt T. Had to run a separate session only once to issue a reboot. Linux is a real operating system. Sometimes you hit Ctrl Alt F1 and fix it.

[Fai Mao]

The only issue I have with Ubuntu is some games (Ones I like) won’t work on a virtual machine.

Other than that it has worked well once I mastered the learning curve of:
sudo exampleofareallylongfilenaMewithsTrangecapit.aliZation

[BipolarBob]

I don't know the answer.

[Gene Eric]

+1

[Bob434]

no, not even close- and I have plenty of ram (16 Gig)- and a pretty massive video card- so plenty of power there-

[Bob434]

Thank you for that link- I tried all the suggestions but can’t turn of the fade effect when i hover over the taskbar icons- I believe this is what is happening- I’ll accidentally hover over a taskbar icon, and it will fade everything- but it seems to get stuck- where all the programs or browser links etc remain faded- so far only a reboot seems to fix the issue

With linux 18.1, there is no ‘desktop effects’ adjustment or option- but there is that mapping option- I tried changing that too- but only time will tell if it works, as the problem seems ot be quite random and will happen like maybe once a week-

I’ll report it to the linux site as a possible bug-

[Bob434]

[[Mint it training wheels for linux.]]

Meh- I’m all done learning new operating systems and commands and whatnot- at this stage of the game I’ll take linux with a walker if i can- much better things to do with my time than figuring out how to do things via command lines & such- point and click- mindless simplicity for me thanks- brain is too tired for anything else-

[SanchoP]

You do realize the —untus (including Mint) are just a fork of Debian don’t you? When Debian and the —untus moved to systemd they ceased to be Linux.

[SanchoP]

You should check out PCLOS. It's "point and click" paradise but NO SYSTEMD which is your problem if you have to do a full reboot to restore your desktop.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

The only issue I have with Ubuntu is some games (Ones I like) won’t work on a virtual machine.

Tried PlayOnLinux or CrossOver Linux?

PlayOnLinux works wonderfully for me and my Mint 17.

[a413]

You could also pick a different Linux distribution. The leader of Linux Mint, Clement Lefebvre, said in 2009, that he doesn’t want your money if you support Israel. I’d oblige. If you do keep Mint, you can avoid sending him money by not using the default search engine, or default music downloader. I’m not sure what other ways of using Linux Mint send money to it.

Here are 2 links about his statements in 2009:

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/83296-the-great-linux-mint-political-train-wreck

http://abriefhistory.org/?p=774

[AppyPappy]

It sounds like a video driver problem. I have Cinnamon on one of my laptops and has never given me problems except that it doesn’t like to “wake up” after being asleep.

[whodathunkit]

One thing you could check is how you have your nemo (default) file manager set to display items. I find that by setting options for display other than default can cause my desktop to become quirky.
The desktop display is only a glorified folder after all.

[GG-1]

If you haven’t tried these - there are 2 post install steps you should do. One - run updates...make sure you have a green check mark in the lower right notification area. If its a blue exclamation point - click it, enter your system password - and let it run. That initial batch of updates solves a lot of problems - especially boot issues.

If you continue to have problems - check to see if there are any proprietary video drivers available for your video card. I think there is a menu link under “Administration” called “Drivers”. Click it - and it will tell you if there is a driver available...I’m generally pretty happy with the stock generic video driver - pretty solid these days.

[Bob434]

Hi GG- Yes I did both of those right after fresh install- runnign latest NVidia drivers (Which isn’t as easy to do in Mint 18.1 as the new software update PPA doesn’t allow the old PPA for the drivers to load- You have to install mint, run the command liens to load the driver PPA- then update linux- otherwise it won’t work- it was a bit of a pain to find the solution- but eventually got it)