I have recently purchased a new laptop and, of course, installed Linux. It has a Mobility Radeon x1700 graphics card in it, so I installed ATI's fglrx driver. The fglrx driver doesn't seem to support the composite extension, but I would like some eye-candy and pretty effects for my new desktop. I have looked at Beryl and Compiz, but they seem to require the compositing extension. Are there open-source drivers that support the composite extension with comparable performance? Are there programs or window managers that provide eye-candy without the composite extension? I keep hearing about "XGl"; what is it?

I am running Slackware 11, if that is any help.

I don't know...I'm in the midst of upgrading all my systems to Debian Etch, but after that I'm planning on playing with Beryl. A recent tutorial on installing Beryl on Ubuntu started off with how to REMOVE Ati's fglrx driver and then install/tweak the open source driver. I take it that the open source driver actually works better than Ati's for Beryl.

I don't know whether the open source alternative is any better but I do know that it's not available for the 1x00 series.

As for XGL, that is the ATI "equivalent" of Nvidia AIGLX; you should be able to use it for both Compiz and Beryl - but it's my understanding that you'll lose direct rendering in the process.

I am ignorant of the meaning and function of AIGLX (and. therefore, XGL). What is it? I may be able to live without Direct Rendering.

See if you can make any sense of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLX

In short, GLX is a layer between openGL and the X window system (=the display server) that allows them to interact.