I was reading this review of Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft, which was just released yesterday, and I remembered that I still had the ISO image sitting on my hard drive waiting to be burned. I figured there is no better time than the present so I slapped it onto a CD and got it running in no time.
The review had so many screenshots of XGL that I figured it was about time to get it installed on my own machine. Normally I use KDE as my desktop environment in Linux and from my experience it has been a little harder to get XGL running in it. Then again I don’t know the ins and outs of Linux but I am fairly proficient at using it.
The review details how to setup XGL in Ubuntu 6.10 for a nVidia graphics card so I went looking around to see what I could find for an ATI graphics card. I ended up using this tutorial but it was designed for Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper so when I added the repositories I had to change them to say:
deb http://www.beerorkid.com/compiz edgy main-edgy
deb http://xgl.compiz.info/ edgy main
deb-src http://xgl.compiz.info/ edgy main
I didn’t try to get all fancy with what can really be done, like this, but I was just happy to get all of the cool effects working smoothly…and it took me less than 10 minutes. All of the people who say that this is just eye candy are completely wrong. Sure certain aspects of XGL/Beryl may be for your viewing pleasure but things like the cube are very useful. Being able to drag windows from one desktop to another is the best simulation for multiple monitors that you’re gonna get.
So you should head on over and download Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft if you still haven’t because it is proving to be a great release.
Is it still pretty hard to install XGL?
I’m still trying to find a guide for linux noobs.
The quest continues.
I’m downloading the ISO right now… on dial-up. I’ve gotta tell you, if this was a job I’d be getting plenty of time and a half pay. Is it really a lot better then the Breezy build I’ve got now or should I save myself 35 hours of waiting?
The guides look a lot harder than they really are. I mean really…all you have to do is copy and paste about ten times over. There still appeared to be some bugs in it when I installed it into Ubuntu. I just noticed that [mandriva.com] for you so I’m downloading that to try.
If you’re still using Breezy then I highly recommend you upgrade because there have been some nice changes since Ubuntu 5. I didn’t have Ubuntu installed before which is why I had to download it otherwise Ubuntu 6.06 users should just be able to upgrade. I’m primarily a SUSE user though.
Man the install on Gentoo for XGL was a nightmare. Ubuntu has dumbed down versions of everything though so I’m sure it’s not a problem. Here’s what mine looks like
[cyber-knowledge.net]
[cyber-knowledge.net]
(Vista style windows)
Well I tried XGL setup on my system just because I wanted to and to my surprise I actually got it working. I used [ubuntuguide.org] Scroll down to the contents and choose ATi or nVidia (depending on your video card). I had it up and running within 10 minutes.
I really like those Vista-style Windows that you have. I was actually thinking about trying out Gentoo because I haven’t used it in a long time.
It always looks a lot more confusing than it actually is. I’m glad you got it working.