Compiz requires its plugins to use the CMake system of buildification. You will need that tool installed on your system, and possibly a plethora of other stuff on which it depends. You will also need the compiz plugin development kit, boost, boost-serialization, and a steaming crapload of whatever else is required from building a compiz plugin. See . Steps to install and test the compiz plugin ------------------------------------------- 1. Install required build dependencies sudo apt-get build-dep utouch-compiz 2. utouch-frame with xi support Either pick libutouch-frame1 from the ppa:utouch-team/unstable, or build utouch-frame from source using ./autogen.sh ./configure --prefix=/usr --with-xi make sudo make install 3. build compiz package ./scripts/build.sh is the easiest, followed by (cd build; sudo make install) 4. run compiz on commandline compiz --replace ccp This will output debug touch data in the terminal.