SuSe 10.1 and XGL

MrVestek

Has anyone tried this out yet? I can't get XGL to work on KDE for me and I much prefer KDE but I have to say I'm liking Gnome with the new XGL effects. Took me a while to get my graphics drivers working properly but I have to say, wow! It's just like the effects that were introduced in Mac OSX Tiger for a 3D desktop... hell in some aspects it even surpasses it.

My system runs quite nicely now even with beagle enabled...

Just makes ya think, all of these features are here, now, better security and even programs in Linux that were promised for Vista but then canned.

One thing's for sure, I won't be installing Vista when it's (eventually) released.

Anyone else tried out XGL yet? Let me know what you think...

NutJob

Im fighting with this on ubuntu at the moment myself.

I do know even on Suse its supposed to be tough to get working(with kde) DL.TV have links to the suse docs on what to do to install on suse. Reports from the site say fourced installs are necessary so best of luck.


Sorry im no help on this one if i get it going on ubuntu ill post what i did and it may help

niallb

I got Xgl going under ubuntu last week, and it's great.
I'd like to get real time log tailing on the top of the cube,
but I'm not there yet.

The install was very fiddly, with lots of backing out,
and redoing - which makes it hard to post a simple howto.
Two points that made life easier:

I eventually left the kdm/gdm settings alone, so they're just
running an ordinary X server - otherwise errors were locking my system.

Put all your Xgl stuff in your ~/.Xsession file.
It'll be run if you select "Default" session, and in between
trying to get it to work, you can log in with your normal desktop.
I have this (Nvidia card):

Xgl -fullscreen :1 -ac -br -accel glx:pbuffer -accel xv &
DISPLAY=:1 # This is now necessary, because the ordinary X is :0
gnome-window-decorator &
# Without the LD_PRELOAD, this failed with one of two errors every time.
# The nvidia glx driver was not backwardly compatible with some Xfree stuff.
# Newer releases will allow this to be taken out for even better performance.
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/nvidia/libGL.so.1.2.xlibmesa compiz gconf &
exec gnome-session

For me, the big key to find was to use the LD_PRELOAD with the software
mesa library to get things running.
I also stripped down the number of modules named after compiz
to just gconf. All others can be enabled within gconf-setup,
and I'm not sure that most of them aren't automatically.
I did have to manually edit the options line to get wobbly windows,
but the cube, alt-tab and F12 all worked straight off.

Doing it in .Xsession like this should remove many of the differences between distributions.

What errors are you seeing, both Nutjob and Achilles?

Achilles check that the line gnome-window-decorator hasn't
been replaced with kde-window-decorator - it doesn't work well,
so you're recommended to use the gnome one for now.

NiallB

MrVestek

What I don't understand is... why does it work so seemlessly with Gnome but then you run into major problems if you try get it to work with KDE?

niallb

You can run KDE, just use the gnome-window-decorator.

Edit: I just tried that - replacing gnome-session with startkde in my .Xsession.
KDE comes up fine, and has the cube and wobbly bits,
but two problems arose - one small, but the other pretty serious!

Only one desktop visible on the pager - I had four configured when I tried KDE.
No input from the keyboard at all to any program or terminal.

This is on Ubuntu dapper.
If I find what caused it, I'll post back.

NiallB

MrVestek

Feck it... I'll just get used to using Gnome. It's actually alot less tedious to use than the last time I used it, they've improved on it alot.

niallb

If you've a TV card, take a close look when you ALT-TAB between windows.
The TV is running live in the window list. Impressed me!

Looks pretty good with the screen magnifier too.

NiallB

MrVestek

niallb wrote:

If you've a TV card, take a close look when you ALT-TAB between windows.
The TV is running live in the window list. Impressed me!

Looks pretty good with the screen magnifier too.

NiallB

I'll have to try that when I get my PC set up properly again in my new apartment. My TV Card hasn't been used in ages, had no Coax line in my old house.

tallus

Kudos to you for helping me to install XGL on my machine Achilles

MrVestek

tallus wrote:

Kudos to you for helping me to install XGL on my machine Achilles

Heh, no worries... you love it now don't ya? I will make thee a Linux afficiendo yet.

tallus

/me nods, haven't booted into winblows since mate.

MrVestek

Hey lads managed to get XGL working on KDE too, I created a little script that is run when KDE loads to initiate Compiz. Right click and save target as on this file and download it to /home/username/.kde/autostart (where username is... well your username).

That should sort it!