Archive for the 'XGL' Category
Saturday, February 16th, 2008
Smackpad Compiz Plugin
This is outstanding – Brian pointed it out, but Vadim sent the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFi40HKFBZE
Thursday, March 15th, 2007
The Most Impressive XGL/Dock/Setup Ubuntu System I’ve Seen
This is why Vista will lose. And it has just been months since it launched. With an open source desktop, anything is possible and this demonstrates that. Where will Linux be in 5 yrs when the next Windows desktop comes out? I’m betting it’s far ahead.
I must try kiba-dock soon. So many cool options, so little time.
Linux desktop communities will have to mature the integration of all these technologies. They should be treated as ‘bleeding edge’ for now although the basic XGL/AIGLX is pretty much standard now with even the lastest enterprise distros (SLED10/RHED5)
Thursday, March 15th, 2007
Bring on Beryl 0.2
“Complete overhaul” – I had been told this was coming so I have not actually tried Beryl yet. Now seems to be the time.
http://blog.beryl-project.org/?p=29
* New Plugins
- Thumbnail: Thumbnails on the taskbar (window list) which show a mini view of the actual window
- Snap: Allows windows to “snap” to each other, or provide edge resistance
- Opacify: Makes windows behind the active window transparent
- Group: Allows windows to be group, to easily switch between a set of windows
Monday, February 19th, 2007
Ubuntu free vs proprietary drivers debate (seems to have) reached conclusion
There was a spur of “confusion” after I thought the original discussion was “over”… but apparently the debate raged on. I see now that there has been clarification by Mark and a matching Tech Board decision.
The ‘summary’ is that Ubuntu will ship proprietary drivers in the distribution (but turned off by default) with ‘simple’ to use steps to enable them (and the benefits). While Ubuntu guys tend to use Wifi drivers as the example, I use XGL/AIGLX as the example. The rationale is there are certain features of the modern desktop that require full HW functionality and until God/Allah/Shiva/whoever brings all religions together, I think this is the best compromise Ubuntu could make. It certainly shows the split between an Ubuntu dev and a Debian dev…
So in the future, I expect Ubuntu distros will have a much more ‘pleasant’ experience for XGL/AIGLX and for Wifi of course. This does not apply to all hardware though – just those pieces deemed “essential hardware” defined as:
functionality which exists widely and for which there are free software applications that are broadly useful, that we wish to include in Ubuntu’s default install, and which require full use of that hardware.
Saturday, November 4th, 2006
Ubuntu Edgy Eft: Very Nice, and here are my thoughts
I must admit, the 6.10 ‘Edgy Eft’ release of Ubuntu is serving me quite well. I’m not sure what it is, but this one shows progress since my last install of Ubuntu ‘Dapper Drake’. Things I’ve noticed:
1) XGL setup… still the most difficult compared to SLED10, Gentoo, and OpenSuse but works better than Fedora 6 (which I couldn’t get to work)
2) Ndiswrapper is still an “add on”…. but most people using laptops need to install it (how about a Systems app for ’1-click’ installs for most common things like XGL, Windows media, Flash, ndiswrapper). If it’s “legal issues” holding you back, just have a community app that does this and that way users have to install just 1 app and not 10 separate ones for 10 separate functionalities.
3) Synaptic Package Manager is near-flawless.
4) The ‘polish’ adjective that got everyone discussing it’s meaning still applies. Ubuntu has polish and I’m not afraid to say it without defining it.
5) Evolution.. oh how I hate it. But need it… New version is better and I am turning on to it a little.
6) With XGL “on” I noticed they’re automatically handling the applications bar – very nice. So now when you flip to a new side of the ‘cube’ you don’t see apps open on the other side.
7) XGL default settings are WAY too much. It’s annoying when by default the wobbly effect takes 4 seconds to stop wobblying… had to turn those down with gconf-editor – is there an XGL settings GUI for Ubuntu? I honestly don’t know.
8) Was hoping to get some new graphics for the background.. minor disappointment.
9) Install is better – but I’d love to see LVM integration for partitioning like in Fedora 6. That blew me away at the simplistic nature of it.
10) SELinux… how long can Ubuntu continue ignoring integration of SELinux and policies if it wants to go corporate/commercial?
11) Flash – much nicer now that we have Adobe releasing the v9 beta. The v9b installs very easily (and works).
12) I noticed there’s no CD/DVD burner by default.. hmmm… Gnome burning just doesn’t cut it. Had to install Gnomebaker.
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006
Gnome 2.16 Released: Interesting uses of Cairo…
Take a look at Gnome 2.16 and you can see some interesting uses of Cairo and Compiz. Gnome is definitely maturing … and making the desktop easier for end users…
Friday, August 11th, 2006
I’m currently a SLED 10 user – and I’m unusually impressed.
Yep, I switched from Ubuntu to SLED 10 this week in my neverending tour of distros. The first thing that jumps out is Novell really made this a desktop distro (aka, not just slap a “Desktop” label on a server platform).
SLED 10 is by far the easiest to get XGL up and running. First, just open the menu, go to “Install Software” then install either your ATI or nVidia driver. Then open up the menu, go to “Control Panel” and under Look and Feel you will see “Desktop Effects” which is basically an XGL utility. Click “Enable Desktop Effects” and you’re all set. Novell even logs you out and restarts everything necessary to use XGL right away – no reboots. In that XGL utility you can also modify settings for XGL including setting it up to have 100 faces on the cube – what you’d want that for I don’t know, but you can set it to whatever you want.
My only real suggestion thus far in the user process is for Novell to get some agreement with ATI and nVidia to install the drivers during setup… not sure why they didn’t especially when you can access their repositories during install….
Beagle integration is very cool. However, I’ve noticed the scope of Beagle is only for searching files you have rights to – i.e. normal users can’t find ifconfig. Kindof annoying if you want that “one place to search” euphoria, but I understand clearly the security issues.
The new menu under “Computer” at first gives you the reaction of “oh no… they didn’t” and you get a sick feeling and pictures of Windows float through your head. Then you see… no, this is actually logical – this is more like Mac OS X.
Here’s my bold statement about SLED 10: This is the FIRST challenger to Windows. I feel qualified to say this b/c within the last 5 months I’ve used Fedora 5, OpenSUSE 10, Ubuntu 6.0.6.0, Gentoo 2006.0, SLES 9, Kororaa, Xandros, and RHEL 4 WS.
I’ve always been reluctant to suggest switching normal users from Windows to Linux – that’s changed. I’ve long felt engineers and “techies” should be using Linux – it’s easy for them to learn. However, there is undoubtedly a segment of everyday users perfectly ready for something like SLED 10. Novell’s right – “Your Linux is Ready”.
The time is now for desktop Linux to get started – I can feel it. SLED 10 may one day be called “the shot heard round the world”.
My sister asked me to find her a laptop before she goes to college – I think I’ll try an experiment – load SLES 10 and see what happens :)
Thursday, July 20th, 2006
Just hit me – how XGL could be a “Killer” feature
So XGL is nice eye candy (and AIXGL). They’re fun and make the X11 interface exciting. But do they really provide “productivity enhancements”. You can make small arguments here/there, but ultimately it’s not a game changer. I feel the same way about Vista’s Glass UI as well.
Now, how could this be a game changer – what if via Xen you could run a Windows partition on a side of the XGL cube. Maybe on another side, you run FreeBSD (or any other BSD of your choosing). Then you can achieve a very simply UI access to multiple environments. It could probably be hacked together today using VMWare and some major chopping of X11 code.
Yeah every developer just shakes their head “dream on” but hey… why not at least throw out a vision that maybe 5 yrs out can be a reality. I think this could be a productivity improvement – use the XGL cube interface to make desktop users, virtualization power users.
Thursday, May 25th, 2006
Hmm… Vista looks a lot like XGL… or OS X…
Microsoft innovation: take features in the Mac OS X, add in help buttons, call widgets “gadgets” and call them your new OS… also noticed it looks surprisingly close to XGL.
http://www.eweek.com/slideshow/0,1206,pg=0&s=25983&a=179025,00.asp
Friday, May 19th, 2006
Changing the top image on an XGL “cube”
Ok, so you’ve gotten over the initial shock that you can twist turn and rotate your XGL desktop. Now you notice that grey, glah image at the top of the cube and wonder… “can I change that?” Of course you can.
First, copy your image as a .png over to /usr/share/compiz/ as root. Let’s say its image.png
Fire up gconf-editor and first go to key “apps -> compiz -> plugins -> cube -> screen0 -> options” and edit the “images” key and add an entry for “image.png” in the order you want for priority. If you twist your cube to reveal the top you should see your image now.
Next try this – go to “apps -> compiz -> plugins -> rotate -> screen0 -> options” and turn on (check) the snap-top key. This allows you to turn the cube so you’re looking at the top and the top will then snap into place to cover your screen as if it were another workspace.
Snaps into place to show:
Gentoo logo on an OpenSUSE Desktop cube…
Next up – skydome – the background around the cube… you can even animate it.
Thanks Moosy – you pointed me to the right places.
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