Slashdot Mirror
Beryl User Interface for Linux Reviewed
techie writes "OSWeekly.com has published a review of Beryl, a very cool looking UI for Linux. Matt Hartley writes, "This release, in my opinion, was the most over-hyped and bug-filled to date. You will have to really hit Technorati to see more of what I'm talking about, but Feisty is as buggy as the beta I tested a short time ago. After completely tossing into the wilds of the ubber-buggy "network-manager," anything running with Edgy supported RT2500 driver shows up, but it will not connect without a special script. Those of you who are on Feisty and need help with your RT2500 cards are welcome to e-mail me for the bash script."
Perhaps:
Beryl (note spelling) is buggy. It isn't finished yet.
Feisty Fawn is still a bit buggy. Its only just released.
... I think the author needed to include a little more information.
For example, exactly how does Beryl interfere with OpenOffice Write's word count feature? I'm trying to make a connection and I'm flummoxed.
Also, given that the author spent most of his time reviewing Beryl on Edgy, how exactly does Feisty's network manager reflect on the stability of Beryl? I think he was including the network manager as an example of how buggy Feisty is (though I haven't really noticed any problems myself, perhaps Kubuntu's network manager is a different beast) but there were a few connections that he made internally that didn't necessarily make the transition to the article itself.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
if it's the rt2500 that isn't working then it's most likely isn't network-manager, but your driver. Please complain about the correct part(s) ;)
still reading?
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.
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
TFA is slashdotted already, but from the summary I can't tell if he's reviewing Beryl, the unstable fork of Compiz 3D window manager, which is itself unstable and not enabled by default in the latest Ubuntu and most other distros, or the recently released Ubuntu 7.04, AKA Feisty Fawn.
Like the brawl between Neo and all the Smiths? Man, that was cool.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
No no no! Please don't give us detailed information, publish this "special script" or link to it. Just keep it as a secret.
Wow -- different experiences for different people, I guess.
I'm running a Dell Optiplex GX520, all standard corporate hardware, with 2GB of Ram and an Acer AL1912 monitor off the integrated video subsystem -- and running Beryl. Everything "just worked." No configuration needed to install from the 7.0.4 CD & update from the network.
Actually, I have one problem: a page refresh problem with FireFox. When I scroll "up" a page that has been scrolled "down" I get repeated horizontal lines as artifacts. Touching the top window bar clears the page. Minor annoyance that I'm not worried about enough to investigate.
I couldn't be happier.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
He complained about OpenGL performance, however he is running XGL which is known to be slower with 3d programs. Unless he had an ATI card, there was no reason, really, to not use AIGLX, which tends to run 3d stuff a lot faster.
In a recent Mark Shuttleworth interview posted on Slashdot, the interviewer criticized Fiesty for not having the eye candy turned on. He responded "The actual software itself - Compiz and Beryl - is not good enough."
This is Google's fault. People have come to expect Betaware to be essentially a finished application. It isn't. Final is finished. Beta is for testing. If it's at the point where it works and the devs think they've sorted all the showstoppers then it's a release candidate.
So yes, the author is right, casual users definitely should leave this alone until it's done. That's what "beta" means.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
*rant about beryl still being beta*
*rant about word-count in openoffice not working, no reasons given*
*rant about feisty being the most buggy and overhyped release so far, based on the fact that the new network manager fails to work with his specific network card*
seriously, does he get paid for this?
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.
Beta software has bugs. In other news, Avril Lavigne can't sing, people hate paying taxes, the sky is blue, and your "girlfriend" from Nigeria who keeps asking for money is really a man.
still using feisty beta that i installed monday last week. beryl works great and i haven't needed to boot windows for ANYHTING since the install. didn't even bother to download the release iso - seems to be working fine with the beta+updates. using an nvidia gpu on a latitude d620.
installed the same disc on my desktop at home and it was a little funny. had to get the alt iso because it didn't like my ATI all in wonder x800. after some tweaking i got it working pretty well.
some things i've noticed - on my laptop i had to set the renderer to aiglx instead of auto - was getting black empty windows after a while. have not had that problem since changing that setting. at home i get some flickering when rotating the cube.
other than that i couldn't be happier. fawn/beryl are working great for me and i have everything i need to do my job.
"...if you don't like your job, you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed..." -Homer
These "reviews" are stupid.
#1. Review the distribution with hardware that WORKS WITH IT. You want to review the distribution, right? Not "does it work with Card XYZ123". I know, I know. Finding that hardware is too hard for you. You want to "review" it based upon whatever you have at hand right now. Whether it works or not.
#2. If you want to review how it has problems with "Card XYZ123" then right your review about that card. That means you try that card with different distributions. Again, I know. You don't want to spend more time or effort than is absolutely necessary to get your "review" out.
#3. If you're going to review hardware, review hardware. Which cards are supported? How well? Which are not? Why not? Of course we're not going to see many of these because it takes even more time and effort than the other two.
When using Beryl I feel dizzy because my eyes try to focus on the blurry windows when I move them around. After 5 minutes of use I have a strong feeling to puke because of that, its very uncomfortable and I am not using it because of that.
Don't get me wrong, the fluff is nice but I can't use it. Same goes with OSX's and Vistas "enhancements"... nice but in the long run its just in the way.
i'm liking Metisse a lot. i only played with it a little, but it seemed to be actually useful eye candy. dont get me wrong, i like compiz/beryl, but it doesnt seem to be geared toward productivity.
Metisse, on the other hand, seems to be all about giving you quick access to the window you're looking for, and being able to store more windows on a single desktop.
What makes this even more surreal is the juxtaposition of advertising text in the flow of the article, which I included for the fun of it.
...
(Review) - To this day, I still have to smile when new Linux users decide to take the plunge because they want the cool looking visual effects that Beryl offers. To some limited degree, I can understand the motivation. The stunning videos on YouTube are certainly compelling to those who have never tried to use the setup themselves. Unfortunately, there are still some valid reasons for sticking with the alternatives for the time being. Let's explore some of the issues that I have found with using Beryl.
Pretty, But In Beta. Even assuming you follow the official how-to and not those half-baked tutorials you see floating around, the end result can easily be broken with the blink of an eye. Or rather, an install of a Beryl update. Yes, it's true, updating Beta software can break things, especially when it is your window manager. Because of this, I tend to keep the Beryl repositories commented out only to keep an eye out for any security reasons. Even from the stable updates, I have completely hosed X on more than one occasion. If it works and there is no compelling reason to upgrade - leave it be!
The main point here is that Beryl is very much a beta product. It really kills me to see people spend so much time to get this running when the "wow" factor wears off fairly quickly.
Web Apps Can Never Be Desktop Replacements
What Works and What Doesn't With Beryl. Since I have not tried Beryl on other distributions other than Ubuntu Edgy, the following is not to be seen as a blanket statement. With that said, you will find that some tasks are not well suited for this 3D wonderland. An example? How about anything with OpenGL! Sure, I can run Second Life while cruising around in my world of Beryl. However, the fact remains that it runs so poorly that I'm then forced to use a separate login session. Yes, even switching back to Metacity from the Beryl Manager, thus ensuring things are back to their two dimensional selves, I continue to feel the lag in my system resources when running Second Life and the like.
Then we have the word count in Open Office Write. Obviously, this is something that I use on a daily basis. Unfortunately, it only works about a third of the time (not tested with Feisty yet) when using version 2.04 of the office suite.
And finally, we have the fun of setting up your configuration wrong only to discover that you cannot get pop-up alerts for spell check and other similar items, turn up behind the main browser window. I'm not blaming Beryl on this one, but the end-user. Regardless though, it is still annoying.
Is Beryl Worth Trying? Yes, I believe that Beryl is most certainly worth trying - as a separate session and not the only one you have. I say this as I grow tired of the "running with an ATI card and my drivers don't work" crowd are far too often the bloggers you read about when bad mouthing how "difficult" Beryl is to setup.
GoodBye Windows XP Forever and Ever
In truth, Beryl is easy enough for the average Windows/Mac power user to breeze through once they understand the following.
Get your video driver from this utility. Also consider using a NVIDIA card, if at all possible.
Stick to a tutorial with proven success (Ubuntu Edgy). In my case, I opted to take the XGL route. You may, however, choose to try the AIGLX path instead. I personally use XGL, as I have never had a problem getting it to run - not once. If you can cut and paste with the right mouse click into a terminal window, you can do this. The only area that takes a little trial and error is the startup script. The worst that can happen here is that it does not start Beryl after you do a Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to restart X.
Make sure you are closely following the directions. Since this is for Ubuntu, you may wish to search for another tutorial if you are looking to
Just as a counterpost to the very negative summary: I am currently running feisty with beryl enabled on a dual screen, running nvidia drivers. I made a complete switch from windows about a month ago, while feisty was still in beta, but I haven't looked back since. No way am i letting go of my scale plugin for beryl :) (That feature is worth the whole switch just by itself.)
Doolittle :
Bomb no.20 : To explode of course.
First of all, Fiesty IS Ubuntu 7.04, not required for it. They are one and the same thing.
Second of all, Beryl works great for me, doesn't crash, and doesn't interfere with anything.
Finally, I'd like to point out that Fiesty is the greatest thing that happened to my laptop. It finally convinced me to get rid of Windows altogether, because finally S3 suspend works correctly, along with all my other hardware.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
The software update manager in Kubuntu asked me if I wanted to "upgrade" last week. End-users are asked to upgrade from not-so-good Edgy to Feisty which is *really* not working well compared to running Etch.
I'm using Edgy after using Debian Etch throughout its testing phase and *Edgy* is *still* buggier than Etch was in testing. It should not be asking me if I want an upgrade. The upgrade should be an optional meta-package at best.
There are definitely problems with KDE/beryl drawing some of the the kde dialog boxes right. I don't really know where the problem is, but I can confirm I've seen it on KDE. If there was complaints about kde's default wireless gui, it is very limited in use. Kwlan is much better.
The overall impression I get after using the installer and Edgy with KDE is the Canonical projects are running very quick and dirty for what is supposed to be "released" software.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Ubuntu FF will be stable after second servicepack. (hides from a tossed penguin)
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
Oh bullshit. If you are a company who wants "commercial" level software you don't use an OSs latest release that literally just came out, and you don't use a graphical interface that is known to be buggy just so your users can have eye-candy. Which is why you won't catch major companies using Ubuntu 7.04+Beryl or Vista right now. There's nothing unfinished about Debian stable or RHEL.
The problem with comparing a lot of OSS with commercial software is that you get to see and play with the OSS before it's done. It's a feature, not a bug, to be able to have the code before the developers are satisfied with it. Instead of complaining about them "shipping" bad code, you could just not use beta software. The developers of Beryl will be the first to tell you that it's not stable. Would it make you feel better if they hid it from you until it's "done"?
The Desktop Effects and Beryl both use Compiz and from what I understand the two teams are working to bring the code together into a unified program. Beryl installed in about 20 seconds for me... works great. Looks great. No problems whatsoever. On another note... the only problem I have with Feisty is that my sound card won't work... which is not Feisty's fault. It is Creative's fault because they suck at supporting Linux.
For anybody else wondering what the hell Expose was. Sorry, but I've managed, with great effort, not to touch a Mac in almost ten years.
Now that I know what you are talking about, the expose-like features and the drop shadows (really helps my eyes) are the only reasons I've left Beryl turned on. I'm running it on Mepis 6.5, BTW.