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Sun to GPL Project Looking Glass

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the java-eye-candy dept.

elleomea writes "According to The Register, Sun is releasing Project Looking Glass, their new GNU/Linux based 3D window managing system, under the GPL during their JavaOne conference (beginning today)." The screenshots of Looking Glass make it out to be very pretty. I'm not sure if I have the spare CPU cycles to power such an environment, but it's sure nice to drool over.

4 of 433 comments (clear)

  1. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  2. Re:When I see it by scrod98 · · Score: 4, Informative
    File JAVA and its promise of platform independance away with all those AT&T commercials from the mid 90's that promised you would soon be able to check out and read entire books via the internet, make video phone calls, and perform remote heart surgery with their new technology.

    check out and read entire books via the internet

    make video phone calls

    perform remote heart surgery

    Uh, done

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    LETS DECOMPOSE & ENJOY ASSEMBLING
  3. You don't need CPU cycles... by illumin8 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm not sure if I have the spare CPU cycles to power such an environment, but it's sure nice to drool over.

    The whole point of looking glass is that the 3d environment rendering is offloaded onto the GPU, leaving your CPU to handle tasks that it was originally designed for, rather than drawing all the windows and other stuff it was not designed for.

    --
    "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
  4. Re:Hmmm... by maximilln · · Score: 3, Informative

    Personally, I use all my screen real estate for my current app. I might be in a minority but how many people don't maximize the application that they're working in?

    My operating mode is quite the opposite. I multitask my workload and find myself switching windows 2-3 times/minute when I'm compiling multiple packages, working on new bash scripts, holding IM conferences, and writing a report. You could say that I need to lay off the caffeine but, oddly, I don't drink much coffee. A 3D desktop like this would be a blessing for me. No longer do I need to worry about my screen becoming cluttered with windows constantly reshuffling their order. I can send them back slightly to make them smaller or just turn them sideways.

    Unfortunately my two systems probably don't have the horsepower for something like Looking Glass. I have a K6-3/400 w/ a Radeon 7500 and a PII/400 w/ a Viper 550.

    I've recently learned about Expocity. Expocity is a python patch for metacity.

    Screenshot here and here and here.

    Hopefully it will be a little less resource hungry for what I want to do.

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    +++ATHZ 99:5:80