What is Beryl and How do I get it?
 

Ok I saw on youtube this amazing cube effect thing and all and it says it was beryl. Now do I need a fancy video card t odo that kind of thing or will the one that came in my laptop be good enough. My laptop is a year old this month, so it isn't obselete or anything. Also how do I get the desktop effects to work in Ubuntu? I click on enable and the screen turns white and goes back but nothing happens. What do I do?


Thanks

a.

did you even try googling for "beryl"?? first hit is the project site... the site has a wiki detailing how to install it on most common distributions.

Yeah
 

Yes I have and since I am new it makes no sense. It mentions drivers and all sorts of things I just need a simple "Windows point of view" explanation.

you are using ubuntu?

Open synaptic and type in the search "beryl" .

Ubuntu has a package for this. :)

Beryl is a windows manager like Metacity ( GNOME ) and Kwin ( KDE ) Enlightenment, etc...
A window manager is not the same as a desktop environment ( GNOME, KDE, Fluxbox, etc... ) but the way it works with the windows and the environment. ( hence the name "window manager" )
Also, by the desktop effects, it says that the effects aren't stable yet and experimental and may not work with your graphics card and even has bugs!

So I guess we'd have to wait on that one.

There are more instructions on the beryl thing in ubuntu, you have to do some extra configuring and all after downloading the package.

Use some search engine and type in " running beryl on ubuntu" or " getting beryl to work on ubuntu" etc...

You can search for "ubuntu beryl wiki" (replace "ubuntu" with whatever Linux distribution you're using). Getting Beryl to work can be a challenge, and even in the simplest of cases there may be some significant manual effort involved.

What sort of video chip does your laptop have? If it's Ati Radeon 9250 or lower, then I know how to do it. The already included open source "ati" driver should work just fine, and there are a couple things which need to be manually added to /etc/X11/xorg.conf (if not already there) to make it work.

Yay!!
 

That ATI thing looks familiar! Please send all the instruction that you can, that would be lovely.
Please make it as simple as you can, like you are telling a child. lol.


Thank you,


A.

Those instructions would be pointless unless we know what graphics chip you're using, and what linux distribution you're using (is it Ubuntu?).

Beryl is still bleeding edge, so there's no generic way to "just make it work", yet.

yus, it's the most comfortable if you get a distro with it preinstalled.

i.e sabayon or Ubuntu Ultimate Edition.....