XGL: recommendations and feedback

dtw · 2006-12-11 19:16:43

I been struggling on with a P3 with a 16MB video card for about 2 years and I finally have the power to do some "fun stuff" (tm). In Windows this means any game released since Half-Life and in Linux this means hardware accelerated GUIs! Hurrah.

So, basically, I had a quick read about beryl, which I'm sure everyone would advocate over compiz, and checked out the window decorators, of which emerald seems to be the most popular.

I'm not yet sure what DE I will use on my new system but my favourites are generally XFCE and KDE. I most often use FVWM though, but I guess that is totally out.

What sort of sucess have people had with XGL, the various beryl window decorators and combinations with DEs? I'm not looking for howtos just pure opinion and some tasty screenies are always nice!

ToastedToad · 2006-12-12 02:11:35

At first I found it easier to get XGL/Beryl going with KDE for some reason. Think it had something to do with KDM vs. GDM starting methods. Plus I think it just looks better than in Gnome for some reason. But that's just my opinion.

I have had decent success overall with XGL...right up to the point that it just stopped working on my laptop. Just out of the blue no worky. As of yet I have not been able to resurrect the goodies with XGL. AIGLX on the other had works just fine on my Desktop with KDE. But still no joy on the laptop because I cannot get the open source ATI drivers to work on a 200M chipset.

Oh, and I use Emerald for my themer.

elasticdog · 2006-12-12 02:22:44

Is it possible to get all the new-fangled XGL/Beryl stuff working with Xfce, or are you stuck using KDE or Gnome?

iBertus · 2006-12-12 02:37:14

I used just Beryl without any DE for a few weeks. You can rig up a nice panel with any of the stand-alone panel apps. If you have an nvidia card you can use Beryl without any of the AIGLX or XGL stuff.

WheelsPastore · 2006-12-12 04:09:38

I'm using Beryl with an Nvidia card, Took some time (1-2hours of tinkering) but I'm a relatively new user. Currently using it with Gnome but I don't use GDM. Have Emerald as the window decorator as well as running Kiba-Dock. Currently fiddling with XglSnow to get that working but not having the best of luck getting it to show the snow instead of smalling white boxes of various sizes. Heavily overclocked A64 3000+ 1 gig ram and 6600gt.

stonecrest · 2006-12-12 05:41:49

elasticdog wrote:

Is it possible to get all the new-fangled XGL/Beryl stuff working with Xfce, or are you stuck using KDE or Gnome?

Of course. You just run emerald instead of xfwm4.

karag · 2006-12-12 07:20:44

Hi -
I use latest nvidia drivers, so no xgl - just kde and beryl/emerald. I have to say it is amazing! from the 'wobbly windows', to having my desktops mapped on a 3d transparent cube I can spin around, to the lovely window decorations of emerald. My card will not run the water effect (no pixel shading or something), but there are some good videos of the effects on youtube.
I love beryl.

kasa · 2006-12-12 10:43:18

dtw wrote:

... which I'm sure everyone would advocate over compiz

Well, I hope I'm not starting a flame war, but as far as quality code and actually useful effects is concerned, compiz beats beryl.

Compiz is just more stable and less effects-ipertrophic.
Just my 2c, though.

funkyou · 2006-12-12 13:17:42

kasa wrote:

Well, I hope I'm not starting a flame war, but as far as quality code and actually useful effects is concerned, compiz beats beryl.
Compiz is just more stable and less effects-ipertrophic.
Just my 2c, though.

I second this...
Tried beryl several times. It looks neat and can surely impress your friends, but the effects are too excessive and its also a lot slower (on my machine) and more unstable than compiz...

Compiz however, ist just a lot cleaner and i can use it without any speed issues or instabilities on my aging AthlonXP 1600 / GeForce 5200LE and 512mb SDR-PC133 Ram...

I place a bet that the ubuntu guys will choose compiz over beryl for their next release

WheelsPastore · 2006-12-12 16:28:27

I agree that compared to Compiz+AIGLX which is what I tried previous to the Beryl+Nvidia , it does consume more resources. However these effects can be toned down to whatever level you like as far as I have found. I tried XGL first and have found that to be the most buggy. Beryl seems to be updated fairly often with new bug fixes, far more often than Compiz but maybe thats because Beryl causes more problems for more people?

Things may have changed though last time I used Compiz was right after the split.

delphinen · 2006-12-12 19:04:30

basically, I had a quick read about beryl, which I'm sure everyone would advocate over compiz

I can see you havent tried both. First try Compiz. Then try Beryl. Then you will back to Compiz by yourself

dtw · 2006-12-14 19:11:29

If beryl is so bad why is it in unstable not compiz?

iBertus · 2006-12-14 19:44:19

I think Beryl is more popular due to it's larger feature set and bleeding edge approach. Everyone must remember the true purpose of compiz: to be part of the novell linux desktop. So, novell must keep compiz stable and working. Beryl has no such obligation.

dtw · 2006-12-16 22:40:30

I have tried beryl and emerald and, to be honest, there are way too many spurious options and nowhere near enough decent themes. I mean, who the fuck sits down and says to his/herself "What I really need is an orange theme!" And the 4 permutations on rezlooks that all look identical? No offense, rezza but YAWN!

All i really want is some drop shadows, true term/panel/window deco transparency - you can keep the rest!

iphitus · 2006-12-16 22:55:02

dtw wrote:

All i really want is some drop shadows, true term/panel/window deco transparency - you can keep the rest!

then you probably want compiz. I might chuck it in the repos sometime soon.

dtw · 2006-12-16 23:22:31

That'd be nice, mate, thanks

elasticdog · 2006-12-17 02:36:58

dtw wrote:

All i really want is some drop shadows, true term/panel/window deco transparency - you can keep the rest!

Xfce's built-in compositor does all those things. I've been somewhat interested in trying out one of the other options to mess with they eye candy stuff, but at the end of they day, all I really want is the real transparency and drop shadows...and that's been working just fine for me in Xfce for months now.

Depending on what you end up with, my <code>transset-df</code> package in the AUR might be helpful, as it will allow you to bind tranparency changes to the scrollwheel of the mouse.

dtw · 2006-12-17 15:22:38

Awesome! I never knew! I am very happy with that. I just wish it did the blur under the terminal

manmower · 2006-12-27 23:13:47

I've been trying Beryl over the past week or so but in general it's left me a bit underwhelmed: overkill on the effects, and some weird graphical glitches. I'd really like to try Compiz but I'm not sure where to start, the wiki seems to lack any info on installing Compiz? Does Compiz even work properly with the xorg radeon driver and AIGLX (compiz-git seems to depend on xgl being installed)?

Maybe I've been looking in the wrong places but if anyone could point me to a How-to for AIGLX + Compiz, please do.

Thanks.

Gustavo · 2006-12-29 02:09:13

manmower wrote:

I've been trying Beryl over the past week or so but in general it's left me a bit underwhelmed: overkill on the effects, and some weird graphical glitches. I'd really like to try Compiz but I'm not sure where to start, the wiki seems to lack any info on installing Compiz? Does Compiz even work properly with the xorg radeon driver and AIGLX (compiz-git seems to depend on xgl being installed)?
Maybe I've been looking in the wrong places but if anyone could point me to a How-to for AIGLX + Compiz, please do.
Thanks.

http://forum.go-compiz.org/viewtopic.php?t=90

Just configure xorg.conf like you would do to install Beryl and compile/start Compiz following the guide above.

manmower · 2007-01-23 09:07:16

What is currently the best/easiest way of getting Xgl? DaNiMoTh's repo doesn't seem to work anymore. Should I just versionpkg the stuff in AUR? Anyone tried this lately?

gentlemanfinn · 2007-01-23 15:25:42

manmower wrote:

What is currently the best/easiest way of getting Xgl? DaNiMoTh's repo doesn't seem to work anymore. Should I just versionpkg the stuff in AUR? Anyone tried this lately?

[compiz]
Server = http://www.naderehvandi.net/arch/compiz/

jinn · 2007-01-23 15:33:13

iBertus wrote:

I used just Beryl without any DE for a few weeks. You can rig up a nice panel with any of the stand-alone panel apps. If you have an nvidia card you can use Beryl without any of the AIGLX or XGL stuff.

Please do give some recommendations of some good stand alone panels.

manmower · 2007-01-23 15:37:23

Thanks, but that repo only provides Compiz and not Xgl. I have already used it in the past by the way - in combination with AIGLX, which doesn't like my r350 card. Therefore I'm now considering the fglrx + Xgl route. I think I'll just try my luck with the PKGBUILDs for Xgl from the AUR tonight, if I find the time.

Yemoke · 2007-02-08 15:57:39

manmower, did you find a way to get xgl working? i cant get the DaNiMoTh repo to work either.
please somebody tell me how to get xgl to work, because the apt-get is not far away

Last edited by Yemoke (2007-02-08 15:58:36)

Arch Linux

#1 2006-12-11 19:16:43

XGL: recommendations and feedback

#2 2006-12-12 02:11:35

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#3 2006-12-12 02:22:44

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#4 2006-12-12 02:37:14

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#5 2006-12-12 04:09:38

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#6 2006-12-12 05:41:49

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#7 2006-12-12 07:20:44

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#8 2006-12-12 10:43:18

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#9 2006-12-12 13:17:42

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#10 2006-12-12 16:28:27

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#11 2006-12-12 19:04:30

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#12 2006-12-14 19:11:29

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#13 2006-12-14 19:44:19

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#14 2006-12-16 22:40:30

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#15 2006-12-16 22:55:02

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#16 2006-12-16 23:22:31

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#17 2006-12-17 02:36:58

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#18 2006-12-17 15:22:38

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#19 2006-12-27 23:13:47

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#20 2006-12-29 02:09:13

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#21 2007-01-23 09:07:16

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#22 2007-01-23 15:25:42

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#23 2007-01-23 15:33:13

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#24 2007-01-23 15:37:23

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

#25 2007-02-08 15:57:39

Re: XGL: recommendations and feedback

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