Compiz/Beryl: Simple to install?

Spider

Spider

Spider

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Ive been looking at screenshots of both Beryl & Compiz, both of which look fantastic and are something i'd like to check out on my learning curve of Linux.

A couple of questions though for those who have used either/both:

1) Which is the better of the two in terms of features and aesthetics?
2) Which is the most stable (my understanding is that both are in early stages of development?)?
3) Are they difficult to install on a slackware/KDE based distro? Something that a relative n00b with a eagreness to learn could achieve?
4) Are they a 5-minute wonder like some think the Aero interface is in Vista?


Thanks
 
Spider said:
Ive been looking at screenshots of both Beryl & Compiz, both of which look fantastic and are something i'd like to check out on my learning curve of Linux.

A couple of questions though for those who have used either/both:

1) Which is the better of the two in terms of features and aesthetics?
2) Which is the most stable (my understanding is that both are in early stages of development?)?
3) Are they difficult to install on a slackware/KDE based distro? Something that a relative n00b with a eagreness to learn could achieve?
4) Are they a 5-minute wonder like some think the Aero interface is in Vista?


Thanks
Click to expand...

1 and 2 I think most of the other forumites will be able to answer better than me. However as a noob myself and managing to install Beryl I can inform you that it was fairly simple to install with the aid of an online tutorial, unfortunately I don't have the one I used but they should be abundant on Google. Secondly it makes all the difference, from the outside perspective seeing it on my lecturers PC I thought it was just a gimmick that would soon fade out*, but some of the features really do increase usability and make the multi-desktop environment more inviting. Plus it runs at near enough no cost in terms of processing since it is processed using the GFX card. Great product I would be reluctant to go without it now.

* See what I did there :p I didn't even notice. :D
 
bah you dont need an online guide. just use your package manager and install beryl, it should install all dependencies :)

however i used to use it and ended up removing it, this is because sometimes it isnt compatible with some programs (crossover office had problems with it i think) and also i found it to be quite useless, and disabled most of the options. i do still have it on my laptop for the exposé feature, but everything else is disabled.

daven
 
Beryl is the way to go, it's progressing so rapidly. Once you've got it, you'll hate using anything else :) There's lots to find on the Beryl page, their Wiki is very extensive: Beryl Wiki
 
Just out of interest, do a lot of lecturers use Linux these days?

I give all my material in Powerpoint, with ODF and pdf copies available on request but its always nice to know what people are doing elsewhere
 
About 50/50 of PowerPoint slideshows and LaTeX created PDF, although all lecturers provide PDF versions. Generally the PowerPoint users are the ones who use their own laptop to present lectures.
 
daven1986 said:
most of mine do it on linux but tis a computer science degree with the main system being linux. all files are pdf.
Click to expand...

I've got some computer science lecturers who can't use Linux...
 
gumbald said:
Not sure Slackware has such a thing :)
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Nope, no such thing on Slackware (hence why its so much fun! lol).
Is the featureset of beryl better than that of compiz then?
 
gumbald said:
Beryl is the way to go, it's progressing so rapidly. Once you've got it, you'll hate using anything else :) There's lots to find on the Beryl page, their Wiki is very extensive: Beryl Wiki
Click to expand...
Cool. That guide only seems to cater for nvidia cards though, yet it have an ATI! Typical huh?
 
I use Compiz/XGL on Arch Linux x86_64

Never used Beryl, Ill try it out one day.

They are not hard to install, but they do have many packages and if you are using a 64bit distro it is best to compile them all yourself.
 
Spider said:
Cool. That guide only seems to cater for nvidia cards though, yet it have an ATI! Typical huh?
Click to expand...

Ah, didn't realise it was just Nvidia. I'm often on their forums, if I come across something in the next few days, I'll let you know :)
 
I use Beryl on Gnome with Ubuntu 6.10. I think the hardest part was configuring X11 to use the special features as they've improved the Nvidia driver installation a lot and I hear they're including them in the next release as an option, so no more having to re-compile the kernel to use them.

It's basic eye-candy that will hopefully encourage me to use Linux more with an attractive GUI. I haven't experienced any problems with using Beryl so far but I've only had it on since yesterday afternoon so can't say if I'm going to keep it or not yet.
 
LizardKing said:
Just a note, the Ati drivers will not function with beryl/compiz, although the opensource drivers do.
Click to expand...
Oh thats just typical. its the official ATI drivers that im using at the mometn! *sigh*
 
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