History: System is now mandriva2007, upgraded from a hacked and bastardized 10.1/10.2/2006/source code mishmash.

System had an NVIDIA GeFORCE2 GTS card in it which I purchased 6 years ago and it has been working perfectly well, thank you.

This card wouldn't support 3D desktop, so that capability was disabled in my xorg installation.

Well, my video card died yesterday. So I am now the proud owner of an NVIDIA 7800GS (by evga), which DOES support the 3D desktop, and a new MAG Innovision 2ms 22" lcd display to go with it. I installed the latest NVIDIA drivers, used the Mandrake tool (glxinfo) to turn on all 3D effects, used gset-compiz to set all the options, then restarted X.

I run KDE: no 3d effects are visible. So I tried Gnome; no 3d effects are visible.

I googled here and there, and along the way I have done the following (but not in this order) in response to various tips I found:

-reinstalled xorg (using rpm --install --force --allfiles)

-reinstalled portions of glibc (also by forcing)

-uninstalled/reinstalled 3ddesktop-utils (or whatever it is called...a mandriva meta-package)

-moved the symlinks libGL.so.1 and libGL.so so that they point at the native linux (mesa?) libGL libraries, not the ones that NVIDIA installed.

-altered xorg.conf, adding this line:
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
to the Device section that deals with the video card and adding this section

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection
to the xorg.conf file.

-altered /etc/kde/kdm/kdmrc, changing this command:
ServerCmd=/usr/bin/X -br
to this one:
ServerCmd=/usr/bin/Xgl -fullscreen -ac -accel xv:fbo -accel glxbuffer

Now, when I changed kdmrc (did this before forcing reinstall of xorg and glibc), I would apparently get Xgl to start, but it gave me nothing but a white screen although I could hear programs starting and running. If I did an alt-tab, it would give me a "select your window" type of display for so long as I held the alt key down. After reinstalling those packages and changing the symlinks, using this kdmrc crashes X.

I rather suspect that the basis of my problem is that my original install of *something* doesn't include something I need because the old graphics card didn't support it. With the upgrade to the graphics, I now have the hardware but the system is being totally unfriendly about telling me what is missing. When I try to start Xgl from the command line I get an error telling me that a display manager is already controlling display :0. If I try Xgl :1 then I get a window that seems to have no capabilities to it.

Trying to start compiz from the command line gets the same error; trying to start it as compiz --display :1 gets an error message (after a timeout) that it can't open display :1.

Does anyone here have any idea what I need to do to get the eye candy running?

if your still running gnome open the control center and click on desktop affects click enable 3D desktop
if the button is gray you can try this from a terminal window
this worked for me but I was running Suse 10.1 and an ATI adapter

LQ has a fast and new search function to help find answers to questions already asked, just a tip.:0

Just from memory, you want the mesa libraries installed but if you want to use the nVidia driver module, why change back to mesa?

I had heard once, If glxinfo gives mesa-named driver and rendering enabled, you've done it wrong.

I'm using beryl 2.0, a similar branch of compiz...

But I have found a well-trodden wiki that may help. From beryl.....

http://wiki.beryl-project.org/wiki/I...yl_on_Mandriva

and another from sos....

http://seerofsouls.com/wiki/How-Tos/BerylMandriva2007

You may find another line or two for xorg.conf in there too.

I have xgl=no in /etc/sysconfig/xgl and compiz=no in /etc/sysconfig/compiz

and /etc/sysconfig/compositing-wm is installed and configured

The nVidia installer told me that I did not have a symlink to libGl.so, but then it ran ldconfig to update the system to include that file.

see how you go.

Well, you gave me the clues to get me started with beryl. Was quite an exercise to get everything to work but I finally managed it.

I now have eye candy. Can't decide if it is worth it; some of the features are cool and others are just annoying.

Now if only I could figure out how to make the cube work.

go to Beryl Settings manager -> Desktop. Second checkbox on the left is the cube.

Well, yeah, I found that pretty quickly. Doesn't seem to do anything though. At least, what it does doesn't resemble a cube.

Oh, now I have it working. Actually I think that'll be pretty handy.

I don't see how to see the top and bottom of the cube though; seems like it'll only rotate horizontally.

OK. I have this cube figured out. You don't see the top and bottom except via transparency. The whole thing is pretty cool.

I do have two criticisms. First, I have 10 desktops in KDE which I use. I would like to open a window on one face of one cube in one desktop and have that window stay there. Thus I could move from desktop to desktop, and from one face of a cube to another, and effectively have many many many desktops, depending on how many faces I put on the "cube". However it doesn't seem to work that way. Windows seem to hop from display to display with no particular rhyme or reason. I have observed that the active window always stays with you when you change desktops, but it seems that if you change desktops when one window is active, every window on that cube goes with you also. I don't like that.

My other complaint is that I want to see all windows that are open in the taskbar, regardless of desktop. In fact, I depend on that, otherwise I'll lose windows. I am used to selecting the window I want and being taken to the desktop. With beryl it seems that I can only see the windows that are open on the current desktop. This'll be a problem for me.

Beyond that, this is pretty cool, when you figure out the rules. Setting a degree of transparency was the key to figuring it out for me.

Keep looking through the manager and settings, there's more.

Yeah, there's lots of stuff. But I can't get an active window to stay on the cube face in the desktop where I put it. It insists on following, and the option that I found to show all windows in all desktops doesn't appear to work. The result is that I am losing windows, and hunting all over the place for windows, and so forth.

I had 3 copies (I think) of the beryl control manager open because I kept losing it and couldn't find it again. Finally concluded I must have closed it so I opened it again.

Well, I am now a "master of the cube". Beryl is really very cool. I've reported the windows following me as a bug on the beryl site, and I've also suggested that all windows in all desktops on all cube faces should be displayed in the taskbar.

Overall, beyond the cutesy effects, the capabilities provided with beryl are sure to enhance my productivity and improve my experience. Once that window-following problem is fixed it'll be a simply outstanding package (IMHO).

You might need to turn off a few of the effects set in kde, like focus follows mouse, just a guess.

((edit) Beryl shares a lot of the effects available with kde and having them set twice messes things up. They still tie in with the x-server

like, transparency, and other effects.)

Otherwise, when you fix it, please post back and tell us how you solved it.

Cheers, Glenn

Have you seen this...

http://wiki.beryl-project.org/wiki/General_Options

lots of info on what and how beryl is configured.