Compiz and Linux Mint

scorp123 · Post by **scorp123** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 5:49 pm

mikescottcnc wrote:Has anyone tried to get Compiz running on their Linux Mint machines yet?

Please use Beryl instead. It has far far more features and it's not that hard to set this up, just really really read what they say on their pages and follow the instructions. Please go to this thread and browse to "Issue #7 - AIGLX, Beryl + Emerald eye candy":
http://lt.k1011.nutime.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=195

The instructions posted there should work right away. I got my 3D stuff running in no time. And here is what it can look like when you finish the setup -- I posted a screenshot some time ago: http://lt.k1011.nutime.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=451

Regards,
Scorp123

hairy_Palms · Post by **hairy_Palms** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 11:46 pm

im gonna completely disagree with scorp123 go with compiz, having used both a lot compiz is far more stable, a lot faster, and has more features than beryl has, most significantly support for metacity themes so you dont need to search for special themes

follow this howto
http://gandalfn.wordpress.com/howto/how ... x-on-edgy/
use the dev line

scorp123 · Post by **scorp123** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 5:18 am

hairy_Palms wrote: im gonna completely disagree with scorp123 go with compiz, having used both a lot compiz is far more stable, a lot faster

Hmmm ... OK, when I first started with this 3D stuff it was still the other way round. But OK, given that both projects constantly release new code it could be that compiz is now better ...

hairy_Palms wrote: follow this howto
http://gandalfn.wordpress.com/howto/how ... x-on-edgy/
use the dev line

Thanks for posting this ... I'll try it out.

EDIT: I tried it ... and I didn't like it, I clearly still prefer Beryl + Emerald. compiz isn't very stable on my system whereas Beryl hasn't crashed once on me so far.

So best thing probably is to try both and find out which one works better. For me it's Beryl ... for someone else it might be compiz.

Regards,
Scorp123

hairy_Palms · Post by **hairy_Palms** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 12:44 pm

neither of them are badly unstable, but beryl had the annoying bug of crashing the panel when i right clicked on it. the dev compiz is a lot more stable than the stable compiz which sorta confuses me

another point to remember is both are waaay more stable under aiglx than xgl.

scorp123 · Post by **scorp123** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 3:21 pm

mikescottcnc wrote:The Beryl link to add the deb file to sources does not seem to work. I have added the line and when I updat apt-get it tells me that there is an error in the line.

Please be more specific and more precise. What did you do, where did you get stuck and what error did you get precisely? Maybe one of the repos is down ... happens sometimes

But it would help if you could tell me precisely where you got stuck ...

scorp123 · Post by **scorp123** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 5:51 pm

mikescottcnc wrote: E: Malformed line 28 in source list /etc/apt/sources.list (dist)

Don't you just love the super-precise and informative error messages a Linux system gives you?

mikescottcnc wrote:Any suggestions?

Yes. Follow the suggestions given to you by the error message. Check line 28 of your /etc/apt/sources.list file .... Or just post the entire file here so we can take a look at what's wrong with it.

scorp123 · Post by **scorp123** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 6:05 pm

mikescottcnc wrote:Well Ok if it will help I copy and pasted the direct line from the web page:
deb http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/

That's only 3/4 of the line. There is stuff missing at the end. Please make sure you really copy and paste correctly

scorp123 · Post by **scorp123** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 6:37 pm

mikescottcnc wrote:Great thanks for the info. But that is the whole line.

No it's not. Read again.

You don't really want me to read that line for you?

Hint: deb lines always need the URL + the distribution they are meant for + what software is located in which subdirectory there. In other words:
deb http://some.url.here distro directory

Now if we check your line:

Code: Select all

deb http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/

Do we have the word "deb" in the line? Check, it's there. Do we have the URL there? Check, it's there. Is the name of the distribution there? Is the name of the subdirectory there? Hmmmm ....

But when I look at the web page I see that the information is there. You simply did not care to copy the whole line. You know, there is a reason why this stuff is in boxes there ... you're supposed to copy the entire text in that box, and not just the first half of it

BTW, I am getting more and more drunk here

You better hurry if you want your eyecandy working this year

scorp123 · Post by **scorp123** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 8:19 am

hairy_Palms wrote:im gonna completely disagree with scorp123 go with compiz, having used both a lot compiz is far more stable, a lot faster, and has more features than beryl has, most significantly support for metacity themes

Now after having played with both my opinion is this:

- compiz is slightly faster, yes
- compiz can use your normal MetaCity and now even KDE themes, yes.
- compiz is now more stable than it used to be, it doesn't crash anymore.

However:

- Beryl has far more features! e.g. transparent cubes
- Beryl's and Emerald's settings managers offer better configurability
- Beryl can switch on-the-fly between the different window management mechanisms present on the system, even compiz is detected and can be used
- easier installation, less issues: I can easily switch between pure GNOME, pure KDE and GNOME+Beryl and KDE+Beryl without getting issues with the tray applet trying to load itself in the wrong session (e.g. when I just want KDE without the fancy effects). compiz's tray icon, once it was active, always tries to load itself again in the next session, even though I e.g. switched between "KDE" and "KDE+Compiz" (I configured separate sessions!). I have no such issues with Beryl. If I select a pure KDE session than this is exactly what I get, Beryl will only load when I select "GNOME+Beryl" or "KDE+Beryl" as my session (I configured separate desktop sessions according to the Beryl wiki)

I agree that both are good and very cool though, and surely worth playing around with.

If you go the extra-mile and configure separate sessions (according to the suggestions given in the wiki pages of each project) it's possible to have both systems installed alongside each other. So far I haven't had any troubles with that.

Even if by accident you load Beryl's + compiz's tray applets at the same time chances are that the one which got activated last takes over, the first one deactivating itself.

Regards,
scorp123

hairy_Palms · Post by **hairy_Palms** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 8:46 am

theres no need to make seperate sessions under compiz if u just right click on the tray applet and untick 'GL desktop', your back to bog-standard metacity, (which i need to do this for quake4 or my performance takes a major hit)
cant speak for kde but i presume its something similar.

beryl does have some features compiz doesnt but personally id rather have a few less effects than my desktop losing its window borders every half an hour.

scorp123 · Post by **scorp123** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 9:12 am

hairy_Palms wrote:beryl does have some features compiz doesnt but personally id rather have a few less effects than my desktop losing its window borders every half an hour.

I never had that problem and my machine has now been running for the past 4 days straight without reboot ...

Alephcat · Post by **Alephcat** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 10:36 am

my laptop used to loose it's borders, but the latest updates seem to have cured that. The laptop is an Intel onboard graphics chipset (not exactly sure what model).

EDIT: sorry forgot to say that I am using Beryl

hairy_Palms · Post by **hairy_Palms** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 3:17 pm

out of curiosity what features does beryl have that compiz doesnt?
does beryl have magical fire effects know ?

scorp123 · Post by **scorp123** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 3:44 pm

hairy_Palms wrote:out of curiosity what features does beryl have that compiz doesnt? does beryl have magical fire effects know ?

They call it the "burn" effect, e.g. menus and windows can burn away. You can even configure the color of the flames if you want that. Or set them to random ... now that's flashy

hairy_Palms wrote:does beryl have magical fire effects know ?

Most noteworthy in my opinion:

- transparent cube: when you initiate the rotation the cube becomes transparent, revealing all desktops and everything that runs on them all at once. Videos will even continue to play, and so on. Screenshots:

http://i121.removed/albums/o217/scorp12 ... pCube2.jpg
http://i121.removed/albums/o217/scorp12 ... opCube.jpg

- easier configuration: The "Beryl Settings Manager" is better organised IMHO, it's really easy to find all the config settings in a quick manner. Also there is never a need to use "gconf-editor" and Windows-style searches for some obscure Registry-like setting. Beryl's settings manager does it all.

All in all Beryl has the better overall consistence, cooler features, and I also find the configuration easier.

hairy_Palms · Post by **hairy_Palms** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 2:55 pm

compiz has had burn for a while and you can change the colour too

no transparent cube though,

but gnome-compiz-preferances is much better than beryl-manager
beryl settings manager is just a mess imo

so all that instablity, just for a transparent cube?

ill stick with compiz

scorp123 · Post by **scorp123** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 3:17 pm

hairy_Palms wrote: beryl settings manager is just a mess imo

Not anymore! They re-vamped the menus and stuff is much easier to find now. It's almost perverse how tempting it is now to play around with the settings

hairy_Palms wrote:so all that instablity

I never had any instabilities or weird behaviour with beryl ... Your mileage may vary. In my case it was compiz that behaved strangely.

And the transparent cube is sooooo infinitely uber-cool

It just blows all the Windows guys out of their socks when they see it. "WOOOOT!? Your Linux GUI can do that .... "

mfab · Post by **mfab** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 5:48 pm

Same experience here with my X300 notebook card. FPS in glxgears around 250 without beryl and jumps up to 4500fps (!?!) with beryl/xgl on. (it even looks like it laggs and I just can't imagine that this number is all that high, might be a bug?!)

I also receive extremely high cpu-loadage, it goes to 99-100% when watching a fullscreen video without doing anything else. (my notebook fan didn't even stop moving

)

I also got the info that calculatings should be done from the graphics now instead of the cpu, anyone have any infos on that or if it is different from xgl to aiglx?

btw: right now i run a fresh installed bianca and do not intend to isntall any stuff like beryl untill it is more stable and known to work mithout major glitches... well... at least I will try not to read a nice guide how to install all those nasty effects...

bigbearomaha · Post by **bigbearomaha** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 6:36 pm

I would love to use the effects of Beryl or Compiz, but I think it really still belongs to those in advanced userland.

I tried to follow the how to for compiz, I got errors right off the bat telling me the first command I gave it didn't exist. went downhill from there.

When a nice installer/config app is available,as I'm sure someone will come up with soon enough, I will try it again.

It all sounds very cool and the screenshots are nice. all in due time.

Big Bear

sanguinemoon · Post by **sanguinemoon** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 11:24 pm

The instructions on the wiki are pretty easy:

http://www.linuxmint.com/wiki/index.php ... Linux_Mint

I followed them and got Beryl working fine. I wonder if Cassandra will have Compiz by default, since Feisty does and what the possible (probable) remerger of Compiz and Beryl will mean for future versions.

15241353 · Post by **15241353** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 10:09 pm

When i saw "GL Desktop", i thought "linux", am i right to think that?

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