First of all, you should take a look at Compiz-Fusion, a project where Beryl and Compiz are put together. I could be wrong, but this might be what you're actually looking for..
Second, see their
web page which very probably has all the information you need to download, install and configure it on your system. Also see what you need in order to get it work; I'd say at least a graphics card that's capable of doing some 3d and on the other hand drivers for it that allow your software take advantage of the features.
In some distributions there are packages available for Compiz-Fusion (could be for Beryl too, but it depends) in the official (or non-official, again it depends) reposities so you could install the software simply by checking the package in your package manager's graphical front end and clicking Apply. A lot easier than on Windows, as you don't even need to manually download anything, not to mention to make sure all the depending software is pulled in also (if some other packages are needed for it to work, your package manager should get them for you in the process). So basically you would just launch the good-looking package manager application, find C-F and click to install it. Once over, you should be able to just start and enjoy it.. Some distributions such as Ubuntu go even further and have the basic functionality ready for you right from the moment when you have your graphics card (hardware acceleration enabling) drivers properly installed - user just needs to open the desktop outlooks configuration utility, select "enable desktop effects" and start enjoying. For more precise control over the various effects the user can then install the Compiz-Fusion configuration utility (a few clicks, nothing bigger) and run it to tweak the thing..
Now the fact that you had to copy-paste some mystic commands from a website, manually download some files (hopefully binary packages and not source code
) and do it all without good step-by-step instructions leads me to think you were viewing some not-so-up-to-date manual or perhaps some not too well written home-made guide. This is perfectly ok if you know what you're doing, but can indeed be difficult for a beginner -- it would probably be equal in Windows to download single .exe, .dll etc. files and try to place them into the correct directories or even try to compile a project from source using a compiler/IDE such as Visual C++. That's hard if something is.. So if you can, try to stick with binary packages (I believe they are Mandriva-specific .rpm packages in your case), because those you can download like any other files (like .exe or .msi on Windows) and double-click to install.
The cryptic commands then..well, they all have a meaning. Web is full of
man pages (manual pages) of Linux/Unix commands so if you wonder what something does, try to do a web search for "man
command" where
command is usually the first word in the command line you're looking at. The rest is then options to that command, usually explained in the same man/info page, and possibly file locations or urls or something. If the command does something with files, the usual case is that either the directory where it operates is mentioned in the command or if not, the current directory is probably assumed (you can always use
pwd command to print out the directory you're currently working in). For example
Code:
wget http://www.some.url/somefile
would download the given file into the directory that is the current working directory when the command is run.
In short, get familiar with your distribution's package management tools, at least the graphical front-end to the package manager and if possible it's command line equivalent so you know how you ask it to install a package from the package reposities (if you have an internet connection). That's a lot easier than installing software on Windows if you ask me, because most of the software is available in the same place and you don't have to hunt for the files all around the web
When you're familiar with that, tasks like installing Compiz-Fusion should become easier..
Another thing is that old software is typically more difficult to get than new.
