Xgl vs Xorg

[RustamB]

That seems strange to me, but I didn't see any topics discussing Xgl here, so I want to find out how many people visiting this forum actually use Xgl as their X server.

I was a bit late with installing OpenSuSE 10.1 but finally installed it a few weeks ago. I followed this guide on Novell Cool Solutions to install/configure Xgl
http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/17174.html. After a few days of playing with 3d desktop cube, floating windows and transparency I've came to decision that this is not only beautyfull, but also very usefull feauture. I'm really amazed.

I would say, that the most usefull feature is when you move mouse to the top right corner and all windows are displayed on desktop at once. Now I use this feature instead of classic Alt+Tab way to switch between windows. I also gave up using pager applet, cause now I have 4 facets of cube.

This what I liked from practical point of view. Now how I see the feature of Xgl.

I belive that this is great revolution in OS development. Since we have X server that uses OpenGL for desktop drawing I see no boundaries for 3d desktop development in the feature. Actually it depends on development group's fantasy. Someone might want to produce 3D wallpapers, with multilayered textures....
displaying google search results in 3D room, so that you could walk through them instead of scrolling them

I would also like to hear comments about upcoming Vista. What will MS do now, since Linux has its 3D desktop.

[Weedman]

I had a look at a few videos on youtube regarding XGL, and it does look awesome.

I would seriously considering downloading it for my distro, gentoo. But you have to remember that it is still alpha (I think), and is a long way from being finished. That's why I'm gunna get my hands on the Korarra live cd.

I really would like to see it somewhat near finished by the time Vista is released, and that is a very big possibility, if you think about it.

I'll wait at least until it goes beta to install it on any of my machines.

~weed

EDIT: I think you need another poll option: Not just yet, but it looks cool.

[RustamB]

I would seriously considering downloading it for my distro, gentoo. But you have to remember that it is still alpha (I think), and is a long way from being finished.

I'm strongly not agree. I installed and use it about a week. Everything works fine for me, and I didn't encounter any critical problems with Xgl. The only thing that I'm not happy with is that some java apps are not rendered normally. I would highly recommend trying it, at least you can always switch back to Xorg anytime.

EDIT: I think you need another poll option: Not just yet, but it looks cool.

Maybe But I did not consider this option, because I see in practice how stable Xgl even in its early versions.

One note about performance: to my great surprise, Xgl is not video resource hungry. I tried it on my desktop with intel 865 intergrated vga with 96MB video RAM, and also on my laptop with integrated i845 with 64 MB video RAM. Both work great.
2 my office colleages installed it succesfully on ATI Mobility Radeon X600 and NVidia GeForce MX400.

[techieMoe]

I consider XGL a toy, nothing more. I see no productive or practical purpose for it, but I will admit it's fun to play with from time to time.

[RustamB]

I consider XGL a toy, nothing more. I see no productive or practical purpose for it, but I will admit it's fun to play with from time to time.

Don't you say that about XGL Did you use it yourself. Maybe it's a toy, but there are practical moments also, as I described above. SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT XGL!!!

EDIT: I'll post link to video presentation soon, you'll see!!!

[techieMoe]

Don't you say that about XGL Did you use it yourself. Maybe it's a toy, but there are practical moments also, as I described above.

I've tried it on the Kororraa Live CD. It was cute, but functionally uselesss. I see no "practical moments" in your above post that really mean anything to me. See all the windows on the desktop? I've never used that feature even on my Mac, which has had it for a while now. Rotating cube to cycle through the virtual desktops? I'd just as soon click the little square on my taskbar instead.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to knock you for liking XGL. As I said before it's a very neat little program, I just don't personally see any practical use for it. Furthermore, it saps up my system resources that could be better utilized playing 3D games.

[Weedman]

That goes along my point.

My test machine for XGL is my laptop, and it has a not-so-fast processsor, and an ATI graphics card. Playing 3D games is hard considering the drivers suck. I don't want to comprimise that scarce 3D performance.

There is a wiki for XGL under gentoo, and it states that I have to do what's known as "unmasking", which is to allow certain applications to install even though they are still in beta/alpha. Pardon me for being paranoid, but I wish to wait until it's just a bit more stable & has less bottleneck that it currently has.

I can't bag XGL for any other reason, but if I had a nice test-bed machine, I would more than likely install it immediately.

Temptation may prove my rant otherwise, especially with the youtube videos of it .

[stubbe]

just like to put some minor comment about this one. Seen something like this - 3Ddesktop, where virtual desktops choice turns into a carousel of all available desktops. Looks neat, but nothing more than eye candy. But for me, I even barely uses virtual desktop lol. The first thing i do each time finishes a fresh install, I go to display preference, and slide down the desktop number to 1.

[easuter]

xgl = resource hog

[scientica]

I've tried it on the Kororraa Live CD. It was cute, but functionally uselesss. I see no "practical moments" in your above post that really mean anything to me. See all the windows on the desktop? I've never used that feature even on my Mac, which has had it for a while now. Rotating cube to cycle through the virtual desktops? I'd just as soon click the little square on my taskbar instead.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to knock you for liking XGL. As I said before it's a very neat little program, I just don't personally see any practical use for it. Furthermore, it saps up my system resources that could be better utilized playing 3D games.

heh, try pressing F11 (sort of Exposé - see all windows, very convenient for +20 firefox windows ) then there's the alt-tab replacement, nice with live previews.
Btw, Using xgl moves some of the load from CPU to GPU, right?

Only things is that one must hack the kde-window-decorator not to quit because the qt-part isn't done yet - only thing that's missing is the window decorations, but I've learned to live with out them - there's alt+mouse (right to resize, left to move), etc

Haven't tired to play any games yet, but glxgears seems to work fine, although I've heard that Direct rendering is off in xgl, and thatapparently gives lower fps :/