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They're calling it Beryl, are you kidding me http://www.beryl-project.org/? Isn't this the same kind of naming overlap which Microsoft sues like crazy over http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_vs._Lindows?

First of all, people claim "hardware problems.. blah blah". Why? Because people are building their own systems. "Mainstream" means that people will buy PRE-MADE desktops from places like Dell and HP. Hardware problem solved (assuming those vendors properly build them and install them). This is what Apple has been doing for a long time... it's no wonder they work so well... they're very specific pieces of equipment!

The next issue. This one is FINALLY changing. Prettiness. As much as i love me some Linux ... Compare it with XP, and OSX. A year ago ... so crap. But this IS NOT Linux. This is KDE / Gnome / Insert_other_OS_name_here. The same with the OS logos on load up... images, icons etc. There are SO MANY pre-built icon sets out there... SO MANY that look freakin awesome... yet KDE and gnome continue to look like late 90's early 2000 desktops (compare to OSX). Again, this IS changing and the new KDE looks nice! But if they get all the bells and whistles tossed in there (AKA: Beryl Project) ... Then people will "Ooohh and Ahhh".

LINUX is already in a state that could have gone mainstream a LONG time ago. It's the additional things out there that are the limiting factor. Thankfully, all that is changing... and slowly people are starting to see that. The same with the "linux is hard to install" ... When was the last time a common user installed WINDOWS to see how hard that was!? They didn't ... because it was vendor pre-installed.

... Get the vendors ... Update Gnome / KDE in there with REALLY easier to use "Theme" options (as in... stick a big icon on the desktop to get to that theme section) .. and pre-package a ton of the awesome icons and themes which are already available .... and most importantly (for me anyways)... PRAY that gaming companies STOP making games on directx. THEN it will be TRUELY mainstream.

Not just gamers are interested in a good video driver. 100% of recent OS/X and Vista users require a 3D desktop. With compiz and beryl, Linux users have access to the same basic functionality. This is actually useful, as in OS/X exposé.

Its been over a year so I don't remember the details of GIT, but I remember having to do a lot of things "twice". Need to do a checkout? Two commands. Need to commit? Two commands. It was a bitch to use and I am glad I'm done with it. SVN, on the other hand, I felt very comfortable with from the start

mtn pull
mtn update

mtn commit
mtn push

http://themes.beryl-project.org/

Isn't it just so telling that _all_ of the most popular themes are ripoffs of the Windows GUI?

...will it run Beyrl?

Aero supports pixel and vertex shaders, giving Vista that frosted glass effect that Beryl cannot match.

Blur strives to be easier on the GPU by taking advantage of caching techniques and having many different shaders of variable strength to allow lower end cards to work more smoothly. Blur can even be used on cards without pixel shaders.

I noticed that a swing app (IntelliJ) I was running in the 1.6 sun jre didn't work with beryl. The application wouldn't paint anything inside the window it popped up in. After a little digging, I found a patch for the jre and now it works fine.

http://wiki.beryl-project.org/wiki/Java.

maybe a similar problem with open office?

I've checked all over beryl's website http://www.beryl-project.org/ and Ubuntu's http://www.ubuntu.org/ and I'm beginning to think they may be separate entities. weird.

Its not systematic, I've only done it on my one system - but at least it is about beryl

Firstly installing was easy enough - on Fedora using yum it went in no probs.
The FAQ on the beryl page was quite useful, you should consider looking at it ( see http://www.beryl-project.org/faq.php )
Nvidia don't make great drivers compatibility wise, so you probably will need to use the copy rendering path, you can select it in the advanced beryl options > rendering path > copy, after clicking on the gem icon (this stops you getting random black screens when you have a few windows open, but does cost some speed)- the devs from nvidia said they are working on it... but don't hold your breath
Themes are pretty easy to get
There are a lot of options to play around with and you can make your system look exactly how you want with a little bit of effort

All in all, its pretty good... give it a go, if you don't like it you can always go back to metacity easily

I'm sorry for stating this so bluntly, but: that was a very poor review. It doesn't mention what Beryl does apart from the title, which mentions that it's a cool looking window manager. The article doesn't even have any screenshots or descriptions of how it improves the UI. The author doesn't expound on any features since they don't even mention any of them. It doesn't mention development of beryl, where they intend to go with it, how beryl compares to other similar routes to a 3D desktop on Linux, how it compares to desktops on other OSes, or any advantages to be gained from the functionality of using beryl for every day work. This is material for a message board post, basically.

OK, it's easy to criticize, so I'll do my part. Beryl (wiki) is a desktop compositing manager and window manager that takes advantage of 3D acceleration. Essentially it draws each window separately, allowing them to refresh and paint independantly and then puts it all together into the desktop you see. This allows graphical effects due to the fact that each window can be manipulated as a separate element by the 3D card and mapped as a texture to 3D objects, to which shaders and other geometry-altering effects can be applied, allowing for effects such as wobbling windows and water ripples.

Beryl accepts plugins for extra effects and features. The functionality Beryl provides can be extended to control the transparency of windows, allowing you to reference other windows while you make changes in the current one. Plugins are provided that organize your windows in front of you, allowing easy task switching. An enhanced alt+tab task switcher shows picture-in-picture previews of windows you can switch to, while highlighting the window you are currently selecting. Beryl can provide zoom and contrast features to make your desktop easier to see in certain situations.

There are many ways in which Beryl can be extended to provide helpful tools for every day desktop use, but since it is in its infancy (being on version 0.2.0 as of this writing), many additional features may be incorporated into the main release, and who knows how developers and users will enhance the desktop with Beryl's feature set.

It doesn't really change the feel of using applications under Gnome or KDE, but you feel a lot more aware of what's going on because new animations represent your actions visually and you see smoother transitions between actions such as opening menus, switching, minimizing, maximizing, and dragging windows. I haven't used any other 3D accelerated desktop, so I can't comment on how it compares to those. I have no idea how it compares to Windows Vista, or OS X. Feel free to reply with your experiences and comparisons.

A feature spotlight is available on the home page, and you can download additional Beryl window manager themes.

I'm sorry for stating this so bluntly, but: that was a very poor review. It doesn't mention what Beryl does apart from the title, which mentions that it's a cool looking window manager. The article doesn't even have any screenshots or descriptions of how it improves the UI. The author doesn't expound on any features since they don't even mention any of them. It doesn't mention development of beryl, where they intend to go with it, how beryl compares to other similar routes to a 3D desktop on Linux, how it compares to desktops on other OSes, or any advantages to be gained from the functionality of using beryl for every day work. This is material for a message board post, basically.

OK, it's easy to criticize, so I'll do my part. Beryl (wiki) is a desktop compositing manager and window manager that takes advantage of 3D acceleration. Essentially it draws each window separately, allowing them to refresh and paint independantly and then puts it all together into the desktop you see. This allows graphical effects due to the fact that each window can be manipulated as a separate element by the 3D card and mapped as a texture to 3D objects, to which shaders and other geometry-altering effects can be applied, allowing for effects such as wobbling windows and water ripples.

Beryl accepts plugins for extra effects and features. The functionality Beryl provides can be extended to control the transparency of windows, allowing you to reference other windows while you make changes in the current one. Plugins are provided that organize your windows in front of you, allowing easy task switching. An enhanced alt+tab task switcher shows picture-in-picture previews of windows you can switch to, while highlighting the window you are currently selecting. Beryl can provide zoom and contrast features to make your desktop easier to see in certain situations.

There are many ways in which Beryl can be extended to provide helpful tools for every day desktop use, but since it is in its infancy (being on version 0.2.0 as of this writing), many additional features may be incorporated into the main release, and who knows how developers and users will enhance the desktop with Beryl's feature set.

It doesn't really change the feel of using applications under Gnome or KDE, but you feel a lot more aware of what's going on because new animations represent your actions visually and you see smoother transitions between actions such as opening menus, switching, minimizing, maximizing, and dragging windows. I haven't used any other 3D accelerated desktop, so I can't comment on how it compares to those. I have no idea how it compares to Windows Vista, or OS X. Feel free to reply with your experiences and comparisons.

A feature spotlight is available on the home page, and you can download additional Beryl window manager themes.

I'm sorry for stating this so bluntly, but: that was a very poor review. It doesn't mention what Beryl does apart from the title, which mentions that it's a cool looking window manager. The article doesn't even have any screenshots or descriptions of how it improves the UI. The author doesn't expound on any features since they don't even mention any of them. It doesn't mention development of beryl, where they intend to go with it, how beryl compares to other similar routes to a 3D desktop on Linux, how it compares to desktops on other OSes, or any advantages to be gained from the functionality of using beryl for every day work. This is material for a message board post, basically.

OK, it's easy to criticize, so I'll do my part. Beryl (wiki) is a desktop compositing manager and window manager that takes advantage of 3D acceleration. Essentially it draws each window separately, allowing them to refresh and paint independantly and then puts it all together into the desktop you see. This allows graphical effects due to the fact that each window can be manipulated as a separate element by the 3D card and mapped as a texture to 3D objects, to which shaders and other geometry-altering effects can be applied, allowing for effects such as wobbling windows and water ripples.

Beryl accepts plugins for extra effects and features. The functionality Beryl provides can be extended to control the transparency of windows, allowing you to reference other windows while you make changes in the current one. Plugins are provided that organize your windows in front of you, allowing easy task switching. An enhanced alt+tab task switcher shows picture-in-picture previews of windows you can switch to, while highlighting the window you are currently selecting. Beryl can provide zoom and contrast features to make your desktop easier to see in certain situations.

There are many ways in which Beryl can be extended to provide helpful tools for every day desktop use, but since it is in its infancy (being on version 0.2.0 as of this writing), many additional features may be incorporated into the main release, and who knows how developers and users will enhance the desktop with Beryl's feature set.

It doesn't really change the feel of using applications under Gnome or KDE, but you feel a lot more aware of what's going on because new animations represent your actions visually and you see smoother transitions between actions such as opening menus, switching, minimizing, maximizing, and dragging windows. I haven't used any other 3D accelerated desktop, so I can't comment on how it compares to those. I have no idea how it compares to Windows Vista, or OS X. Feel free to reply with your experiences and comparisons.

A feature spotlight is available on the home page, and you can download additional Beryl window manager themes.

I haven't been able to access the article, but I'd have to agree with the summary. I've tried running Beryl on Feisty for a few days, and I've had a few issues. The effects worked quite well for me, but the deal breaker for me was the poor fullscreen support. It's a known issue. I had trouble with both non-OpenGL (mplayer) and OpenGL (mythfrontend) programs, and "undirected fullscreen rendering" didn't work for me. Beryl isn't activated in Feisty (or Edgy) be default for reason.

However, I do think that the work the beryl developers are doing is fantastic, even though it's not yet a stable release. I worry that the enthusiasm in developing great software like this is hampered by negative (non-constructive) feedback... particularly of a non-stable release.

Did you mean "beryl"? Seriously, you got it right in the title but not in the blurb.

And you can find the project here. Has web 2.0 killed direct-linking? Let me write a blog post and submit to Slashdot to find out.

Wobbly Windows(TM) and other useful features...
http://compiz.org/
http://beryl-project.org/

I think Beryl and effects like http://beryl-project.org/images/cube_full.jpg look fantastic, but I currently use a Mac with Virtue Desktops, which provides virtual desktops, and one of the options is to show an effect when switching desktops, including a spinning cube effect. I have had it enabled for maybe 2 minutes, it's fun but annoying when you want to do real work.

Beryl might be a little better, because you can drag and drop between desktops, and with the transparent "backs" of windows, you can orient yourself better. But otherwise these are all really gimmicks until the way individual apps work changes, for example, Sun's innovative lg3d has had a "turn the window around" feature for a while, and you can do things like write notes about apps, but that's not useful until there is a real app - operating environment integration. Which requires very integrated cooperation and support.. the wm has to know what document or page an app is displaying. This is something like what MS OneNote offers, since you can make notes and relate documents.

http://lists.beryl-project.org/pipermail/beryl-dev /2007-March/000371.html
(ok, so that might go down in flames too)

Actually that was what I was trying to say - even if you disabled the majority of the wobbly windows and desktop cube type effects, the themes alone are fantastic. Beryl-project.org (dark themes) (the official project site) provides TONS of themes that resemble Vista's dark theme - except it's even better because you can tweak small parts of it, thus resulting in your own entirely new theme...

no matter how well imitated, where is Linux innovation in GUI?

The innovation is happening in projects like Beryl and Compiz. (It also looks like they're merging!)

Follow these instructions: http://wiki.beryl-project.org/wiki/Install/Debian

Works beautifully on the graphics chips listed.

KDE has some minor issues, but the whole 3D desktop and animated windows works perfectly.

Like other posts, I don't see the huge technical advantage Ubuntu has. I see Mark Shuttleworth spending money giving ubuntu more visibility.

No compiling. You can tweak to your heart's content though.

http://wiki.beryl-project.org/wiki/Install_Beryl_o n_Ubuntu_Edgy_with_XGL

Yeah, shiney!

What you're describing is largely the result of ignorance and if piracy were defeated, the third world would not be able to afford proprietary software. I'd say free software is pretty damn important and you're doing a huge disservice to developers.

Comparing some KDE theme to windows 2000 is irrelevant because users don't care, a computer is a tool for doing work. If eye-candy is important then install a better theme for KDE, enlightenment or Beryl. Personally I find all that distracting and opt for a clean themed fluxbox YMMV.

http://beryl-project.org/

I distinctly remember that the linux opensource nouveau driver has code to support all these features, that the code indicates that the hardware supports this since something like TNT cards, and that if nouveau does it the proprietary linux drivers probably do it since years.

Also the things "brand new" in Vista and "in no other OS" like running your game in a 3D window are sooo 2005 on linux (ever tried beryl or compiz as your window manager ?).

Just add the repository from the beryl pages. It's not very hard. Debian support will be forthcoming I'm sure.

If Debian could only get that 3D desktop [AIGLX + Beryl] out I would be even happier! Still, THIS IS GREAT!!!

We're trying to incorporate more Linux systems in our office, but as an accounting firm, almost everything is Windows only. From Quickbooks to the ProSystemFX suites of Engagement and Tax, we're pretty well stuck on Windows for the most part.

That said, we've been working with Citrix on an experimental basis in order to add better remote functionality to our staff - and Linux boxes might wind up being the way to go on the client end. I know I've been using Ubuntu on my laptop exclusively for a year now, and a lot of our users have been coming up to me and asking what the deal is with the cube and whatnot (Beryl - check it out if you haven't yet, very very cool - http://www.beryl-project.org/), and I just use remote desktop to manage servers and once in a while run Windows apps if I really need to.

Also, and this is a total self-serving link, I just wrote about giving my kids Linux laptops. http://endcycle.blogspot.com/ - SO FAR, they love Edubuntu. We'll see how long that lasts, though. :) I think it's going to be good. My younger took about 3 minutes to look around, and the next thing I knew, she had changed her background and theming - I was really impressed. AAAAAaaanyway, back to the discussion.

This has been a big complaint of mine for a long time. We all know that under Windows, NVidia has had this PowerMizer thing that allows you to lower GPU power consumption. And we all know about Coolbits, which allows you to over/underclock your GPU in both Windows and desktop linux.

Now here's the thing. Both Coolbits and PowerMizer are disabled for mobile GPUs under Linux. So when you're not needing full 3D performance, that NVidia card is sitting there sucking up your laptop battery power. Might as well load up Beryl and go nuts.

Oh, and nvclock does not work on all GPUs. My mobile QuadroFX GPU, for example, seems particularly immune to it. When I run it nvclock seems to think it is underclocking my GPU, but I see no effects whatsoever---no reduction in the GPU temperature, for example, which is constantly sitting at 85C. Any other suggestions?

I keep on hearing about how bad the binary linux ATI drivers for linux are, but hey, at least they've got their PowerPlay (GPU downthrottler) thing working in Linux. Maybe for my next laptop I'll consider an ATI card.

Some references:
Kiba-dock:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=268645
http://forum.beryl-project.org/forum-17-kiba-dock

kxdocker:
http://www.xiaprojects.com/www/prodotti/kxdocker/m ain.php

I catch a bit of crap here and there for taking the "easy way out" with Ubuntu, but you know what? I don't care. I've tried Debian, Fedora (Core 3, just as Core 4 came out, and then upgraded), Slack, and I almost attempted Gentoo, but the install guide scared me so I didn't. I've done my time, I deserve to take the easy way out now ;). Besides, it's good to see a Linux install go so flawlessly - it makes non-Linux users confident that more things can go their way, and that Linux isn't a fight all the way through.

Anyway, right now I have 3 boxes running various flavors of Ubuntu. I have a Desktop PC running Dapper with XGL/Beryl, a Laptop running Xubuntu (Ubuntu with XFCE, rather than Gnome), and an Apache/MySQL/PHP5/FTP/BitTorrent-Tracker/whatever- else-I-feel-like server on an old Dell 533Mhz/64MB RAM/Terabyte Raid0 array running the Ubuntu server version. I use Ubuntu server, rather than Slack or something for two reasons: Hardware support, and Apt. I run Ubuntu as a desktop OS because of Apt, Ease of install, and because it's wicked sexy looking.

I've never tried SuSE, but I can't seem to find anything that Ubuntu can't do for me. (And in case you're wondering, yes, Ubuntu does offer Enterprise support, not that it really matters to me at the moment.)

The general populace cannot properly build a PC. I have experienced firsthand the results of someone trying to build their own PC, time and time again. There are just too many things that can go wrong. But they should not have to settle for Dell if they do not want. That makes it my job to select quality brand name parts and assemble a quality PC, and if a person wants a $300 PC, then that's what I will build for them. If they want a $600 PC, ok. The more you pay, the more power.

Of course, the other great choice to be offered is Linux, or Windows, or both? Dual boot, VMWare Player, or both? I have now 250 customers, many local, a few not, who enjoy their linux PC and receive tech support and software updates from me, free for the first year, or longer if they wish (for extra $$).

Right now many of my customers are enjoying their new 3D accelerated desktops (video!), and hopefully everyone will have this by christmas. Flash player 9 is also going on select customer desktops, those who are comfortable trying out new software which is not official. All of my customers recieve emails describing services from rhapsody.com, emusic.com, abc.com, new features from KDE and related software (amarok!), and other news of interest.

The main theme here is support. It should not be as difficult as it is with Dell. I think it should be more personal, and that is what i hope to offer. That and, of course, a better quality PC than can be found elsewhere. That, above all, is why I entered this business.. working on Dell, Gateway and Compaq etc PCs for years left me wanting something more for my customers, like quality name brand parts, painless and inexpensive hardware and software updates, and of course, personalized tech support.

I guess with Novell going with Compiz since they employ the creator of Compiz and XGL, Ubuntu is going with Beryl (fork of Compiz).The lead of Beryl, Quinn Storm, uses Ubuntu so it's a nice fit.

In the latest Beryl blog (http://blog.beryl-project.org/?p=18) it mentions that the Beryl Project developers have been invited to the next Ubuntu Developers Summit:

For those of you who don't know, the Beryl Project has been invited out to the Ubuntu Developers Summit in California next month. First off Ubuntu is NOT taking over control in any way, and beryl will remain distro neutral. The idea here is to help make sure beryl works with ubuntu and that beryl can be released in Ubuntu. A spec for Ubuntu 7.04 has had some initial groundwork done which will allow beryl to come pre-installed on Ubuntu systems that meet the requirements! The conference is from Nov. 5th to Nov. 11th and I will be keeping you all up to date here on what's going on, what has been discussed, and any new and exciting developments. Stay tuned, exciting progress is afoot.

Backports and/or seveas repositories will give you all the new hotness for Dapper.

I got flash9 through seveas a few days after it was released. Firefox2 doesn't seem to be there yet, but I can wait another day or two.

My sources.list, for anyone who wants it:

deb http://nz.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://nz.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security main restricted universe multiverse

# Seveas' packages (packages, GPG key: 1135D466)
deb http://mirror.ubuntulinux.nl/ dapper-seveas all

# Bleeding edge wine packages (packages)
deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt dapper main

# Quinnstorm beryl
deb http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/ dapper main aiglx

I've had it going for 48 hours straight now and it is working fine for me. I used the Nvidia instructions from the Beryl Wiki. I don't know about using it with AIGLX though. It can cause massive slow down though (the other day I had 2 bittorrents, gstreamer, evolution, Gaim, and firefox with the World Series gamecast from ESPN going and it took a few seconds to open any new windows).

Ok, I agree, the Linux people are major ripoff artists. That being said, when most things _are_ ripped off (which, being great artists, happens rather fast), new features do appear. The window manager Beryl (which is a fork of Compiz) has gone above and beyond in imitating the new graphical bling of Vista. And a lot of the bling from OSX too. I dare say that a lot of this bling comes at a smaller price (hardware wise) than what you get from Vista.

When I first saw screenshots of Vista I was impressed. Impressed with what could be done. Sadly, I haven't really seen them move any further with the bling since the first screenshot was released, and now that I have Beryl up and running I really couldn't care less.

If you look at the forum for Beryl you'll see a LOT of input from users, requesting (granted, a lot of stuff seen elsewhere, but also) new and innovative features and bling, that might actually prove useful when working (and naturally a lot that's pure bling).

What I'm basically looking for is what makes Vista stand out from something like Beryl, except for the fact that you can actually run (some) windows programs on it. Why are people getting so excited over this, when you can have Beryl running on your computer today? Or Compiz? Or Metacity?

Ok, I agree, the Linux people are major ripoff artists. That being said, when most things _are_ ripped off (which, being great artists, happens rather fast), new features do appear. The window manager Beryl (which is a fork of Compiz) has gone above and beyond in imitating the new graphical bling of Vista. And a lot of the bling from OSX too. I dare say that a lot of this bling comes at a smaller price (hardware wise) than what you get from Vista.

When I first saw screenshots of Vista I was impressed. Impressed with what could be done. Sadly, I haven't really seen them move any further with the bling since the first screenshot was released, and now that I have Beryl up and running I really couldn't care less.

If you look at the forum for Beryl you'll see a LOT of input from users, requesting (granted, a lot of stuff seen elsewhere, but also) new and innovative features and bling, that might actually prove useful when working (and naturally a lot that's pure bling).

What I'm basically looking for is what makes Vista stand out from something like Beryl, except for the fact that you can actually run (some) windows programs on it. Why are people getting so excited over this, when you can have Beryl running on your computer today? Or Compiz? Or Metacity?