Fedora's OpenGL Composite Desktop

An anonymous reader writes "First we had Novell's XGL and Compiz technology, which allows for OpenGL-based composite rendering on the Linux desktop. Now Fedora has created the Advanced Indirect GL X project, which aims for similar desktop effects but with a simpler implementation. Sure, at the end of the day it's just eye candy, but make no mistake - the Linux desktop is due for a massive shake-up!"

Comments

"Just eyecandy"

[Tim C]

I spend upwards of 10 hours a day staring at a computer screen; what I'm looking at had better be aesthetically pleasing.

It *does* serve a purpose - it makes my day that little bit more enjoyable. Decorating your house serves no real purpose (unless you're trying to sell it), but most people want something a little nicer than bare walls. People decorate their cubicles and offices - a photo here, a plant there.

I don't see why a desktop should be any different.

OpenGL a big win

[andrewzx1]

Having increased OpenGL support for Linux and gathering development support for advanced graphics toolkits will be a big win for Linux desktop. Having a sexy and slick interface has helped make OSX very popular. Sexy graphics for Linux will open new possibilities for interfaces, data display, games, and more.

Let us pay homage to Silicon Graphics, the originators of OpenGL. They may not live out the year.

Re:Are we wasting our efforts?

[chrismcdirty]

allowing any user to load and install any application or hardware accessory

Isn't that part of the reason Windows is so insecure? Any user can install an application (when using default setup, as most people use), so the exploits can do more than screw with the user's home directory.

Comparison to Novell's XGL effort

[anandrajan]

From the FAQ, How is this different than XGL?

"XGL is a different X server. This is a more incremental change which is slated to become part of Xorg. We don't believe that replacing the entire X server is the right path, and that improving it incrementally is a better way to modernize it. After talking to people at xdevconf, it felt like much of the upstream Xorg community shares this view. You can search Adam Jackson's notes for "large work for Xgl" to get the blow-by-blow or NVidia's presentation from XDevConf 2006 on using the existing model.

We've been working on the AIGLX code for a some time with the community, which is in direct contrast with the way that XGL was developed. XGL spent the last few months of its development behind closed doors and was dropped on the community as a finished solution. Unfortunately, it wasn't peer reviewed during its development process, and its architecture doesn't sit well with a lot of people.

The other question is Wait, can I use compiz? The answer there is a theoretical yes, although no one has actually gotten it to work. We love compiz and we think it's great stuff and is well polished, but it's often confused with the underlying architecture of XGL. Much like the code that we've added to metacity, compiz is a composite manager. With a bit of work, it should be possible to get compiz working on this X server. There's an excellent post from Soren on the topic of compiz vs. metacity."

WMP plays ogg in 2 1/2 easy steps

[dstewart]

http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/

# Uninstall any previous version of these filters.(This is important!) Go to add remove programs, remove oggcodecs
# Make sure media player or any directshow applications are closed.
# Run the installer.

Then Windows Media Player or any other directshow application (eg. BSPlayer) will be able to play Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Speex, Ogg Theora, Ogg FLAC and native FLAC."

You're welcome.