[em-bee]

you are looking for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz

note that compiz is also a windowmanager, so already then compositor and window manager were one unit.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

The compositor and window manager could be one unit. But you can also just slap picom on with any other window manager and that's fine.

[hedora]

I guess this kind misses the point. I was an early compiz user (wobbly windows, fire effect and all), but, at this point I just don’t miss it (literally: I thought I was running a compositor for the last ~5 years, and just… wasn’t.)

The X windows paradigm was fine, and still works great with modern hardware.