XGL looks very good. Is anyone using it yet? What are the pro's and con's for using it with gnome as a default desktop.

Right now I'm planing to install OpenSuSE 10.1, then download the latest updates from the XGL website. How's that for a plan?

I have enjoyed using it so far - the only problem is that (when I used it - no more than a month ago) Compiz didn't actively support theming. I love the effects. (They place somewhere between Mac and Windoze as far a prettiness goes, but superior as far as usability.)

And your plan sounds good - but I would actually use SuSe's versions.

I think you'll find there are lots of people using XGL. Here's a couple of forums dedicated to compiz/XGL. The first one is Gentoo centric. The second is the unofficial compiz forum.

Compiz/XGL is highly dependent on GNOME libraries and such so it plays well with GNOME. I use it with KDE and it plays very nicely too, just that I have alot of GNOME stuff I wouldn't otherwise. I initially viewed it as eye-candy (very important eye-candy mind you) to impress my non-Linux friends with. After using it for a few weeks, I found myself using it's features to increase my efficiency and productivity. The spinning-cube is still just eye-candy to me (it's cool though).

I have no choice but to use a Windows machine at work; that's where I notice myself trying to do things that aren't possible. When I first started using Linux, I didn't understand the need for more than one desktop. Then I'm work one and can't arrange things by task on their own desktop. That's when I realized the power of multiple desktops. Same thing with XGL, I'm always doing a CTRL-ALT-Arrow or CTRL-ALT-TAB to try and move from one program to another. Can't do it at work and then I'm searching the taskbar for the program I need.

As far as your plan goes, I use XGL as my default desktop with Gentoo, but it sounds OK to me.

How can I tell if my video card is compatable with XGL?

I've got a Dell Poweredge server.

Also, what's a good but inexpensive sound card? (I'm not a hardware guy.

Take a look here.

XGL on a server? Doesn't sound like the thing to do.

I use XGL .. Was easy to setup and configure.. and very functional

a downside to xgl is that it uses indirect rendering, which means most games (ut2004) wont run on xgl server.... and it uses a beta xorg server, and for me, i use dvdrip, my transcode times on suse are double what they were in fedora, because of the lack of direct rendering. not only that, my computer crashes before it can complete a full movie transcode. (i have to reuse log and do pass two after reboot)

i love it, and i am going to miss it, because i dont think i can live with the problems that suse 10.1 is giving me...

if anyone knows a distro that dosent.....suck... pm me

No PM's but SuSE doesn't suck.. if you know how to use it.

I've tried XGL on my Suse 10.1 system and have to say that I am impressed. All we need are better GUI widgets to bring Linux up to par with Mac and Windows (KDE 4 looks pretty promising).

However, I have had some issues with XGL. For some reason, my xgl settings control panel doesn't work at all so I am stuck at the default settings (which aren't bad, but could be better). The "make windows translucent when dragged" option doesn't work for me either. The water effects also fail to activate. Do any of you guys know how to fix this? and where should I go to find the latest XGL packages for Suse 10.1

some of my config options wouldnt hold their settings, or wouldnt work, just update to the latest cvs rpm.
the feature where you bump mouse against the side of the desktop to rotate cube didnt work until update. update compiz too

can some one give me direct link from where i can download xgl? and what dependecies i need to download?

What Distro are you trying to isntall on?

suse 9.3 i looked at yast but it dont have xgl on istall cd-s??

some one ?

10.1 suse is the only distro shipping with xgl at the moment. it is probably the easiest to get working, too. (if you have a popular ati/nvidia card) mine is 9800pro, and setup was a breeze