Slashdot Mirror

augros writes: "Keith Packard, responsible for the X RENDER extension, is still working diligently on the X component that may one day make X a rival to other bleeding edge windowing systems (...ahem, *Quartz*). It's thanks to RENDER that 'xterm -fa arial' gives you a sleek anti-aliased terminal and k-jofol can offer you those funky-shaped skins. But how long will it be before X wields true-translucent windows? The cheap hacks (eterm) have lasted way too long. Read Packard's article; he goes over the details of what will need to be done. If you're interested in the current level of development check out Packard's screenshot. I tried his code myself and had to do tweak it a bit before the window even mapped. He claims it worked as true-transparency on his box, albeit painfully slow, however all I got was alpha-blended rectangles on an unrefreshing background." And watch this space for an XFree86-related interview, too :)

augros writes: "Keith Packard, responsible for the X RENDER extension, is still working diligently on the X component that may one day make X a rival to other bleeding edge windowing systems (...ahem, *Quartz*). It's thanks to RENDER that 'xterm -fa arial' gives you a sleek anti-aliased terminal and k-jofol can offer you those funky-shaped skins. But how long will it be before X wields true-translucent windows? The cheap hacks (eterm) have lasted way too long. Read Packard's article; he goes over the details of what will need to be done. If you're interested in the current level of development check out Packard's screenshot. I tried his code myself and had to do tweak it a bit before the window even mapped. He claims it worked as true-transparency on his box, albeit painfully slow, however all I got was alpha-blended rectangles on an unrefreshing background." And watch this space for an XFree86-related interview, too :)

Adam writes: "Below is a new HOWTO on escaping black hole, soon to be on linuxdoc.org ...Well, mabye not quite literally, still interesting. HOWTO-escape-bl ack-holes." Hmmm. Well, it's matter escaping from the accretion disk, which by definition is not inside the event horizon yet, so it's nothing really radical, but the producers of Star Trek-like shows can keep this handy for cheesy dialog on next season's shows. "Captain, we are activating the ion ray chambers to ride the supersonic winds out of the black hole!"