XGL - Why all the fuss?

[cvill64]

XGL/Compiz is also necessary for market reasons as well, especially with the more conservative (and less interesting, I might add) effects of OSX and Aero. Linux needs to compete, and XGL/Compiz allows it to compete.

Well said, well said! I do love the drive of the market!

BTW, we don't use the vanilla compiz, we use quinnstorm-compiz line

[monarky]

I've done my own time testing with Xgl off and with it on! Of course this is tuned up pretty nice and I have "Middle Mouse Button" set in Rotate plugin, as the "iniate" shortcut! So I can just drag the cube around or spin it anywhere. With some Firefox windows open, Amarok playing songs without a playlist even, a large png in The Gimp working, four folders, couple of terminals, Open Office Presentation, and K3B burning a CD! You know the average set of Desktops we can run on Linux, but not on Winblows (tested Vista 2months, sucks and s..l..o..w...).

With Xgl off it works fine, but does seem s..l..o..w.. switching desktops, browsers are slower, The Gimp seems Gimpy, and visualization stops in Amarok with music playing. Now top that off with trying to fill out a form in a browser with other windows covering it and having to drag it around to get to the information underneath, typing and posting a blog in another browser and keeping tabs on a ktorrent downloads. Well any computer is going to slow down, but I couldn't believe the difference when I did the same exact things with Xgl loaded!!!!

People don't realize that if your CPU is being used to do the majority of the work (including graphics drawing) w/o Xgl, then with it on, the GPU takes over everything having to do with drawing your desktop, 3-D and 2-D graphics, and leaves your CPU wide open to do the actual computing!

On three separate comparable tests I saved almost half the time used without Xgl on the same computer. With Xgl on, instead of slowing down things almost seem to speed up the more you load! The thing with trying to fill out a form on a web page becomes simple with transparency allowing you to lay the form over the information in another file underneath. Amarok playing a song with a full screen visualization plays like it's the only thing running, and everything seems to come alive! Multi tasking becomes a piece of cake! Xgl and Compiz enable a huge productivity increase that I wasn't really aware of and that can't be described, only demonstrated in tests like this!

So yeah if you use your computer like I do, you don't ever want to go back to sleepwalking in a standard desktop setup snoring your way through work! It's just flat out BORING and wastes way too much of my time! I just plain love it and can't get enough speed! I'm addicted!

[pxc]

I like XGL, but I have a pretty crummy video card (Nvidia FX 5200), so it lags a bit doing things like spinning the cube in my preferred resolution (1280x1024). I also noticed that if I change the resolution to 1024x768, for some reason, it messes with my fonts (they get a lot smaller and harder to read). I definitely agree about the "wow" factor. I've had a few different people turn their heads simply because of that.

What I'd really like to see is a zoom plugin that lets you continue to operate the computer as you are zoomed in (full screen). My mother has extremely poor vision, and because of the unavailability of full screen magnification tools on Linux, is locked in to Windows and ZoomText.

[cvill64]

kmagnify? text2speech?

[pxc]

I've seen/tried both of those, but the problem is that they still only magnify a part of the screen. My mom is legally blind in one eye, and she currently magnifies the entire screen from 4-8x just to read text and things like that. I just like the XGL one because it's able to do fullscreen, and anything less isn't really sufficient.

[miller0521]

Is XGL on the mini edition by default once I get through the anaconda installer? And will it work in VMWare? I know the OS will, just wondering how VMWare acesses my GPU

[kennylog]

if you boot with the command "gentoo xgl" or "sabayon xgl" (depending on the version) and then install it xgl should be enabled by default, don't know about vmware

[lxnay]

VMWare does not support 3D.

[miller0521]

VMWare does not support 3D.

Thanks for the tip, I won't worry about XGL then. Dont really think I really need it for programming! Though I'm sure its good for those who use Linux as their primary OS.

[lxnay]

Thanks for the tip, I won't worry about XGL then. Dont really think I really need it for programming! Though I'm sure its good for those who use Linux as their primary OS.

like me... addicted