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Old 05-18-2007, 09:31 AM   #1
keratos
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Gnome transparency + window manager


NEEWB:

Is there a window manager for Gnome that implements transparency and/or translucency (T/T)?

I am slightly confused with what I've read. Terms such as Beryl, Gnome-compiz, XGL, GL, video card accel etc.etc.

My motherboard has a built in SIS video chipset for onboard AGP.

Can I get a window manager for my ubuntu dist that implements some form of T/T - for example on the window decorations etc.

Thanks in advance.

p.s I've reverted to Ubunutu from KDE. KDE is much slower on my machine, at starting up apps and the kde splash screen is on for 3 maybe 4 times longer than gnome. Also, the quality apps (Gimp, avidemux, synaptic, open office) all look better in Gnome and run faster - that is my observations from the last 2 months or so.
 
Old 05-19-2007, 03:36 AM   #2
b0uncer
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In my opinion, tested on my laptop, both KDE and Gnome are equally fast -- or slow. That's why I use, for example, WindowMaker for working. Anyway..

To get transparency etc. stuff ("real", not "fake" so that it's not just the background image that shines trough) you need two things:
1) 3d accelaration (drivers for your chipset) so that things don't get too slow, or that things work at all, because these effects are usually 3d OpenGL
2) something that does the job: for example Beryl (beryl-project.org), "OpenGL accelarated desktop"

Compiz is like Beryl, those two are the main ones you hear about. Last time I tried Beryl worked better for me, but in the end I don't think you see much difference: the effects are pretty much the same. Using them slows things down considerably, especially if you don't have a good 3dfx card and drivers for it that work like a thought. If you want a usable desktop I don't recommend using those, they do look good but mostly they will just slow your working down.

First install your 3d drivers for your chipset if there exists any. For nVidia and ATI cards there are proprietary drivers and many distributions offer a simple nice binary package to install the drivers -- for other chipsets it depends on the manufacturer, or if you can't find proprietary drivers, you may need to resort to something like Mesa drivers. After you've obtained and successfully installed the 3d drivers for your card and tested that they work (your opengl screensavers and glxgears etc. run fast and look good), you can move on: install Beryl or Compiz. Beryl is easy to install if you use one of the binary distributions, and Beryl's site has easy-to-follow instructions on how to do the installation. It's been some time since I last installed Compiz but it took me some more work to do. Nothing big or too difficult, but it did take some more steps than Beryl last time I installed it.

Good luck if you still want to get them. Like I said, I don't recommend using them in your daily work, but they're easy enough to install once you read the instructions (3d drivers, Beryl or Compiz site, your distribution's package manager, ...) and hopefully easy to switch on and off if you need them or not.
 
Old 05-19-2007, 03:40 AM   #3
keratos
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thanks.

it is unusable on my machine.

i'm going to uninstall it all now!
 
  


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