What’s Hot on the Linux Front? Xgl + Compiz

By | May 19th, 2006 comments icon (8) Comments


xgl movie cube screenshot

Think Apple’s OS X offers incredible user-interface eye candy? Wait until you see Xgl and Compiz in action! A little background first. Xgl is an X server architecture running on Linux that taps into high-powered, modern graphics cards via their OpenGL drivers to accelerate jaw-dropping 3D visual effects rendered by the Compiz compositing windows manager. Together this duo greatly enhances desktop environments like GNOME and KDE.

Effect features include:

  • Transparent windows with drop shadows
  • Wobbly windows and menus
  • Window Vista-like switcher with real-time video thumbnail video preview
  • Rotating desktop workspace 3D cube (shown in the attached image)
  • Switch desktops workspace on cube with active window following
  • Make windows translucent or opaque
  • Windows zoom in and out feature
  • Move and snap window feature
  • Water cursor effects
  • Support for additional effects via plugins

[VIDEO]
See other Xgl + Compiz videos on YouTube

Presently, Xgl is in Alpha stages, but many distributions are already testing the technology. openSUSE 10.1, in fact, includes Xgl and Compiz but is not active by default. Ubuntu is also planning on integrating the techology in their upcomping “Edgy Eft” release in October, however, you can get it running today like I have on Ubuntu “Dapper Drake” (yes, at this time it’s still in Beta – official Dapper release is June 1, 2006) by following this great how-to. Side note: the Fedora guys have opted to go with an Xgl alternative called AIGLX in their Core 5 release that offers similar functionality and shares some of the same code.





Filed in: Industry Buzz

  • http://www.alexandergrundner.com Alexander Grundner

    Wow. I just found a video on YouTube where this guy used Boot Camp to install Ubuntu on his iMac and then installed Parallels’ Workstation for Linux to run 4 different operating systems on each desktop workspace — makes handy use of Xgl and Compiz :D

  • David Walker

    Seeing interfaces like this on Linux makes one wonder what has taken Microsoft so long…

  • alister

    I am looking forward to all of the new improvements that Linux is going to be making in the new couple of years ….

    Alister

  • bcdelozier

    This technology has been out there for a while now. Look at project looking glass on the sun website.
    http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/
    This is the link to the open source site.
    https://lg3d-core.dev.java.net/

    IMHO, The obvious reason that Microsoft took so long to get this into vista is two fold. One, they became aware of this idea after they started building it and had to go back and redo some things and Two, Microsoft doesn’t have the community assisting in the developement process like Linux does.

  • http://www.alexandergrundner.com Alexander Grundner

    bcdelozier said: This technology has been out there for a while now. Look at project looking glass on the sun website.

    It may look similar, but under the hood is a different code base entirely — Xgl and Compiz is a fairly new creation that doesn’t rely on Sun’s proprietary Java platform. What’s more, each platforms’ approach to the UI is completely different if you look at the screenshots. But what’s really giving Xgl and Compiz traction is that it’s already starting to be integrated into many popular Linux desktop distributions.

  • bcdelozier

    I’m happy to hear that something like this is becoming a reality. Your reference to Java seem’d negative. Java isn’t a cure all by any means but Sun is a big proponent of opensource. A great example of this is Johnathan Schwartz being appointed to CEO. He has long sung the praises of the opensource community. Java itself will soon be opensourced to a great extent.

  • http://www.alexandergrundner.com Alexander Grundner

    I have nothing against Sun… I just know that the free software advocates/developers will opt for technologies that are completely open over anything that makes use of proprietary code. Hence, the reason why Xgl + Compiz is more broadly accepted for inclusion into upcoming Linux distributions — it fits their philosophy and mission.

    Related:

  • bcdelozier

    I see the point.

    If Sun had opensourced Java sooner, Looking Glass might have been the one everyone picked up on.

    Shame it didn’t happen when Looking Glass first started back in 03.