My Two Cents

If the latest dist-upgrade made your compiz title bar “blank”, just invoke compiz theme application, click on edit on the bottom, go to general tab and select one of the options from Title-bar object Layout. Your title-bar contents including the buttons should reappear. I am wondering why the developers did not make one of these options the default. This may confuse many a newbie. For the solution to a similar problem, read my previous post.