Beryl/Compiz on Kubuntu Feisty
As part of my fooling around with Linux, I recently upgraded my laptop to Kubuntu, the beta of 7.04 Feisty, with mixed experiences. I had problems even getting things to dist-upgrade, etc, which isn't that surprising, considering it's in beta, and I was upgrading it from Dapper. If this had been a real production machine I probably would have gone for a fresh install.
But after some pain and learning I got everything back up and running again. For giggles to see where technology is at I installed both Beryl and Compiz
Keep in mind I've never played with either window manager. After trying both (the installation instructions on the Kubuntu wiki were decent), I was impressed (and confused) by the "beryl-settings" application - it had quite a bit of stuff on there that I did not understand, and no help function on there to guide me along either. I did find most of what I needed on the website, which is good, but in the long run I think the team will need to do a better job naming settings and publishing help that's context sensitive. I didn't get so much into compiz, I liked the effects but didn't see any management app, and I ran out of gas early into the morning to dig into man pages, etc.
Both WMs offer some stunning eye candy for sure. Points that didn't seem to work well for me were the integration with the existing K panel and desktop switcher applets - multiple desktops offered by Beryl seemed to confuse them greatly. On Beryl I also was finding that some windows had just the window decoration enclosing a big black box.
In the future, if either one of these two WMs are tightly integrated into Kubuntu, I'll be very excited. Sure, there are raging arguments about how eye candy is just that, but I want my experience with a computer to have the ability to be fresh and exciting, especially on my off-time. Some things, like the big zoom out feature, are very handy and quick. I look forward to more things like that in the future, where all the effects actually produce an increase in productivity. And to be sure, it's also a point of pride, having a WM installed that can compete with and edge out other offerings from Apple and Microsoft. As it stands now my curiosity is piqued enough to explore the settings more with the Beryl project and determine if the strange behavior I was seeing can be overcome and if the WM is stable enough for everyday use.
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let's see some screenshots! :)
i just did a clean install of Feisty the other day..., pretty painless. The whole Debian thing is a little different as most of what i know is RedHat/Fedora. What's your reason for Kubuntu? I've always found KDE a little slow/gobbed up with features I don't need. Do you feel like there is a significant advantage over GNOME?
Well I've been using Gnome now for a little while, and while I like most of it, it tends to hide a lot from me too. That and I think the old Gnome wireless thing falls short. I like KDE's polish, it's pretty configurable as far as I can tell, etc.
If I had everything in the world perfect, I would have no panel at all, just multiple desktops. I'd use either compiz or beryl to handle the "super zoomout" feature that I like so much from the recent OSX release, and I'd keep a command line or the equivalent always present on the desktop to launch stuff. I've noticed that the majority of quick launchers I've tested fall short - for example, windows they launch aren't in focus, etc, etc. Mac's spotlight is pretty nice, but I don't care so much on finding files, etc.
I thought about fluxbox, but I don't think compiz or beryl work with it, as fluxbox is it's own window manager sort of deal apparently. I don't know exactly how everything is architected and fits in together.
in my early *poking arounds* with Linux, i always liked BlackBox, tho, it too is its own window manager and may not be operable with compiz or beryl.
i sure liked its simplicity and efficiency, for sure, but looks like its development is rather stunted at present.
colin, when are you just going to give in and get yourself a Mac so you can work AND play on the same machine?
: )
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well, i got beryl working with gnome on ubuntu yesterday..., pretty easy config, ran into a couple of issues with xorg.conf settings for my card. i'm pretty impressed with the interface and the 'eye candy.' i was also really impressed with the speed..., i was expecting sluggishness and to turn it off after a day (which has been my experience in the past with these things), but beryl's staying! granted i'm using a pretty decent box.... haven't tried compiz.
as far as the gnome v. kde, i agree that kde has been more configurable and had better 'polish' in the past, though with beryl gnome catches up quite a bit, plus i always thought gnome was a little faster.
have you had any of the following problems:
- strange mouse button behavior
- strange multi-desktop behavior
- strange new window behavior, e.g. a big black box instead of the window's contents?
well actually no..., i'm really surprised. mouse (including scroll wheel) works perfectly..., no big black box, i can't really speak to the multi-desktop behavior as i really don't use more than one most of the time..., what problems are you having with it? the cube feature for switching desktops is pretty slick....
SO I just tried to reinstall fresh on this D620 (nvidia) laptop but still am seeing some buggy beryl like behavior. It just doesn't *feel* polished, I hope before too long that it gets solid as I like some of the features that it offers. Here's some of the things I was seeing:
- Sometimes the right click context menu on the title bar wouldn't have any text, rather, blank lines instead
- Problems switching between different emerald themes (just didn't work)
- Kernel OOPS at one point, unknown cause
- Sub menus would appear slightly behind the parent window
- Menu shadow would be messed up
I wonder how much of this is the hardware I'm using versus the maturity of the code.
Back at it after this page: http://wiki.beryl-project.org/wiki/Troubleshooting_nVidia - so far so good
I'd be curious to see how AWN works for you. http://njpatel.blogspot.com/2007/02/to-quote-destinys-child.html