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XGL in SuSE 10.1 Review

edited July 2006 in Everything Else
I'm pretty much a new comer to linux, but I was able to install SuSE and configure it to run the new 3d interface of linux called XGL. From trying both Vista and XGL, I can say officially that XGL is a hell of alot more useful. Not only that, but XGL has some awesome features, for example the desktop cube.

The most 3D part of it is you're able to spin your desktops around. You hold down Ctrl and Alt and you can drag several desktops at once, displayed on a cube. I was suprised to see that video doesn't trip up when you do this, even when you split the video on the edge of the cube.

When you have alot of windows open, it automatically makes them smaller and shows them all. That got a little annoying, but I soon figured how to work it. As far as 2D animation goes, transparency is kick ass, and you can control the amount with the alt key and scrolling the mouse. When you minimize windows, they swing to the bottom. And I mean swing, not in a straight line.

The coolest part is when you move windows around, they jiggle aroud like jello. I found myself moving those things for half an hour cause that was such a good addition.

So after my full review of vista and how awful and slow (couldn't play steam games well) it was, this is a breath of fresh air. Vista was too sluggish when it came to it's animation anyway. XGL renders your desktop in a snap.

Comments

  • It's funny how SuSE is becoming popular for Xgl. I think it's because Novell has a lot to do wit Xgl and I think they own SuSE now as well. But really, try Xgl on Ubuntu. I'm running that on my main PC right now.
  • edited July 2006
    Yeah, Novell does own SuSE. Did Novell help create XGL or something, or did they just help out? Because it's over all the distros, plus it works on either gnome or KDE.

    That's another thing, KDE was alot easier to set up. The steps required for a Gnome desktop were much more difficult. All I had to do after I installed the invidia driver was do some commands and put a config file in a folder, and I was done. I didn't even have to reboot, and it was already working.

    Ubuntu...hmmmm. I tried that first. I download the newest version (6.06), since I had 5.04. Like I said, I think it's harder to install it on Ubuntu. Plus, when I gave it a shot, there were hardly any good reference pages at all. Novell has everything right there on their site. When I did the steps on some random linux forum, it didn't work. I know, I'm stupid. I took the easy path. But, I've always liked SuSE more anyway. It's just the OS for me, and damn is it fast.

    By the way Scott, what's the URL of that page where it shows you how to set up steam on ubuntu. I searched your delicious, because it was on there before. That might just give me the incentive to try XGL on ubuntu again. Or maybe it will work on SuSE.
    Post edited by glimpster on
  • Now I'm definitely going back to Ubuntu. All of a sudden, XGL has just completely stopped working. Any good ubuntu xgl tutorials on the net?
  • https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CompositeManager/Xgl
  • So I tried Ubuntu. The instructions I used from that page didn't work for me, probably just because I'm stupid. Instead, I reinstalled SuSE 10.1 with Gnome instead of KDE, because the KDE version seemed a little unstable. Gnome set up alot faster, and doesn't have trouble starting up automatically at boot. Plus, gnome gives you options on changing XGL settings.

    Now that I have audacity, a html editor, and a rss reader, I'm ready to install steam. I hope that page you showed works in SuSE. What is the address of that "Steam on Ubuntu" page.
  • Yeah, you were a day late man. It seems like they updated the Xgl packages and it doesn't work perfectly anymore. I updated the software on my Ubuntu and I had to turn Xgl off because the gnome-window-decorator had dissapeared after updating compiz. I'm sure this is something that can be fixed. I don't think that running Xgl and Steam at the same time is a good idea anyway.

    Steam on Linux

    Remember peoples, you can always find my links on Digg or on del.icio.us.
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