Linux: determine compositing?

[Richard Gaskin]

In Ubuntu, the Unity will render using its full "3D" effects or step 
down to a less intensive "2D" version on systems with weaker graphics cards.

I need to do the same with one of my apps that uses blendLevel on 
stacks, in which systems unable to run with the rich compositing needed 
for blendLevel would get a different UI.

Is there a shell command I can call to determine whether the current 
system has rich compositing capabilities?

In Ubuntu I can use:

   /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p

..but I'd like to find a call that can be used on other Linux distros as 
well.

TIA -

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
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