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Compiz Gets Thumbs-Up for Gutsy Gibbon
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Sep 13, 2007 01:47 PM
from the cheeky-monkey dept.
from the cheeky-monkey dept.
Da Chronic writes "After a vigorous debate at the last Ubuntu Technical Board meeting, the board decided to ship Ubuntu 7.10 with Compiz enabled by default. The decision was made despite the fact that Compiz still has some significant issues relating to drivers and Xorg. 'For instance, there are some problems — like accelerated video playback issues with Intel drivers — that can only be resolved by using the EXA accelerated rendering framework which is still not ready yet. When asked why Intel isn't addressing the driver issue, technical board member Mathew Garrett explained that "Intel are working on the basis that composited desktops won't be ready for rolling out until EXA is stable enough anyway, so it's not a concern [for them].' In the end, all but one member voted to include Compiz in Gutsy."
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Compiz Gets Thumbs-Up for Gutsy Gibbon
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and Compiz is what again? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:and Compiz is what again? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http:///#!/)
Keep up with the times or use Google/Wikipedia when you don't know what something is (like you just did).
Re:and Compiz is what again? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://dugger.notsoevil.net/)
It's neat, but I suspect that it's not very well engineered. [ohloh.net]
Re:and Compiz is what again? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://dugger.notsoevil.net/)
These are nitpicks and serious bugs I've found while testing for a few hours. Most are already in launchpad. Bugs don't go away because you don't like me. If you want people like me to go away, report and fix bugs. There's nothing wrong with the software existing -- it's a great tool to experiment with, and impress people. And it's certainly better than what Vista provides. I just think it's important to provide people with a flawless experience out of the box, and let them explore the more adventurous packages Ubuntu provides at leisure.
What's worrying me... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What's worrying me... (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Tuesday June 06 2006, @01:50PM)
anonymous anorexic anacondas
Compiz is...? (Score:2, Interesting)
(http://www.lanified.com/)
Perhaps giving a brief description of what Compiz does in the article is in order?
Don't get me wrong, I would consider myself a fairly adept GNU/Linux user, but that does not necessarilly mean I know everything
Help computer...
Re:Compiz is...? (Score:5, Funny)
I'll forgive you this time, though.
Re:Compiz is...? (Score:4, Funny)
Never Ever Read the Articles.. That is for people with time to spare, and we are busy geeks..
Never Admit Being wrong, Just post that your being misunderstood, and what you were trying to say was....
If there have been more than 4 articles about google or apple this week, we hate them!
If the day ends in "Y" you hate microsoft
Corollary to above, If you post a genuinely well thought out, insightful comment about maybe MS is not all that bad This time you will be marked as Troll or Flamebait.
If a post is made by a "4 digit" user, even if they claim the Iraq war was started by Ceasar in 42BC, for control of the moon and the entrances to the caverns beneath the earth were the Hobbits live, you may never comment against them, or mod them down..
Funny Beats Intelligent comments any day.. (see this comment for reference, which is also a reference to the next rule!)
Last and most important, always try to Karma Whore!
Re:Compiz is...? (Score:5, Funny)
It's like Beryl. Hope that helps! ; )
Re:Compiz is...? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Fbk52Mk1w [youtube.com]
Re:Compiz is...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bloat++ (Score:5, Insightful)
s/compiz/kwin/ (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.awesomeplay.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday November 10 2005, @04:51PM)
Thankfully, you're using KDE, so you'll have at least 8 checkboxes to disable it.
PureEyeSugar (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bloat++ (Score:4, Informative)
As to removability, I would assume a single apt-get call or a couple clicks in a graphical window manager will remove Compiz completely. (You'd sudo the tasks if you are not root.)
Re:Bloat++ (Score:4, Informative)
The idea is that no one needs to be root except to run particular commands (using sudo or gksudo). If you do need to run root you will create the root password and log in as root and be able to shoot yourself in the foot if you point the run in the wrong direction (ie: rm -R
I don't get it (Score:2, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Saturday April 15 2006, @06:21PM)
But then, I now use wmii [suckless.org] almost exclusively, if I'm not just using plain ol' screen [gnu.org].
damn, you be a good poster and go check your links and there goes that frsit psot. oh well...
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Tuesday November 06, @11:44PM)
Most of the eye candy doesn't eat too much CPU, and it all easily be enabled and disabled from it's control panel (compiz-fusion uses ccsm which works great, beryl-settings-manager was also pretty good). I was also impressed by beryl-manager (now fusion-icon) which made switching windows and decoration managers easier than ever.
Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
Not much of a meaningful answer, but then again when posed like this it's not really a meaningful question.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
The only thing really holding it back is the stability issues (my desktop has no problems, but my laptop crashes at least once a day with it enabled). It doesn't hurt to install it and give it a try-- if you don't find it useful at first but it runs stable, then leave it installed-- you might come back and find it useful someday.
Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Informative)
to boldly go... (Score:3)
well... (Score:4, Interesting)
Does Beryl = Compiz now? (Score:2)
(http://www.stevekallestad.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday May 31, @03:02AM)
I really liked it, but there were a lot of problems - nothing insurmountable, but it did take a lot of work searching through forums and playing around with configurations to get everything the way I wanted it. There were stability issues, but I was using a lot of pre-release features and plugins.
So question... does Beryl = Compiz now? And if so, is it stable, or is it just expected to be once 7.10 is ready to go?
Re:Does Beryl = Compiz now? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday August 29 2006, @06:44PM)
So, Compiz + Beryl == Compiz Fusion.
On I8K/GeForce2Go? (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/~Doc%20Ruby/journal | Last Journal: Thursday March 31 2005, @01:48PM)
I thought it would work in 7.4, but it didn't seem to make any difference. Maybe I'm not just setting it on right. I just want to offload some X processing from my CPU to my graphics chip, to make the workstation run faster overall. I don't need the fancy tricks to work, though it would be nice to try them once.
Is there a list of testing progress per graphics chip somewhere?
What happened to Ubuntu? (Score:1)
some one has to say it (Score:2)
(http://splat.justfree.com/)
XGL or AIGLX (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Tuesday November 06, @11:44PM)
On a side note, I upgraded to Xorg 7.3 (xorg-server-1.4) on Monday, and that seems to have broken compiz-fusion (probably due to the new ABI changes). This is on the same ati card with the r300 drivers mentioned above, re-emerging my xorg/compiz components didn't help (I haven't tried since than though).
window redraw problems (Score:1, Interesting)
Windows won't redraw (no text as you are typing, no scrolling, no menu's) until I drag them or toggle their level of transparency.
Using an nVidia 7600GS here.
View from the bottom (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Monday October 15, @07:06PM)
I'm not saying that I evangelize Linux but since it is free, and I do teach it I find it very convenient to be able to just furnish them a copy on the spot. Flashy sells. It sells cars, bombers and hookers why not use it to sell an OS? Before anyone posts a response about bloat please remember that these are primarily 15 year old kids and the concepts of bloat are just academic to them. They won't care about bloat until they are running their own network.
Re:View from the bottom (Score:5, Funny)
They won't care about bloat until they are running their own network.
Or until they find it in one of the hookers you mentioned.
A Compo-whating Window Manager? (Score:2)
(http://www.neverwhen.net/)
I still read that as "A Composting Window Manager".
I guess it depends on what kind of windows you have open.
What about the baby pooh brown theme? (Score:1)
And now... (Score:1)
Man your battle stations, Ubuntu Forums.
Stability Now (Score:3, Insightful)
Ubuntu is cherished by new-to-linux users as being zero-configuration and extremely hardware-compatible. Now they are introducing features which may fail to work with certain hardware. Why on earth would they do this?!
Why is it Intel's problem? (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.gemstate.net/friends | Last Journal: Tuesday September 11, @10:32AM)
So why does Intel need to address anything?
"on supported hardware" (Score:1)
Compiz-Fusion is of value even without the fancy.. (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.sophistic.com/)
I have not yet used compiz-fusion, although I have made sure the graphics card and the freebsd+xorg installation are prepared, when I do I sure hope that it is fairly simple to install a configuration that can be stripped down, so only the the cpu+mem eating code that are needed to render window, toolbar, systray and alike are active, making it efficient. Then I hope it is also easy to enable/disable simple features that suits my liking, with and option to save and switch between different profiles.
But I still wonder if what I dream of is simply a fairytale, or whether this can be expected?
Yikes (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.smileystation.com/)
New users (Ubuntu's target, I believe) will try Ubuntu, see this thing crashing all the time, and think "why did my geek friend tell me this Linux is more stable than Windows? My XP doesn't crash once a day."
One dev said "if we don't get it out there at some point it'll never get good enough." I don't see how foisting it on new users will help get it into shape. Are the Compiz-Fusion devs not busy enough already? There are apparently already KNOWN ISSUES that aren't being fixed, so how is turning it on by default going to improve anything? It surely will not generate better bug reports--new users will not know Compiz-Fusion is the problem; how are they going to bugreport it?
I hope Compiz-Fusion shapes up soon or that Ubuntu reverses itself; if not, this release will be a slide backward for many users--it will resemble Vista: a release with lots of paint, but with no improvements under the surface.
Re:Yikes (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://dugger.notsoevil.net/)
The basic idea here is that by shipping it with bugs, you'll motivate a few people who wouldn't have otherwise used it to investigate. In some cases, this is true. But realistically, we're not sitting on a pile of unused openGL / video driver development talent. Any such slack was picked up by Intel and put to work on what they felt pressing, and as such is not available to meet Canonical's unpaid requests.
We don't even know how bad it is
There are 150 open bugs against compiz, and only 3 labelled critical. But we really don't know how perception of compiz affects bug reporting. We know not all bugs found are reported by it's finder. It's possible that compiz is known to be unstable and rather than report, people just disable and get on with life, assuming compiz stability will continue to be a back burner issue. Dropping compiz into gutsy by default would likely expose more users to bugs.
This exposure is theoretically what testing is for, but for various reasons, hasn't come to fruition. One is that upgrades don't enable compiz. Another is that people come to testing not for Ubuntu's sake but for theirs. They're interested in significant new software, or preserving some hardware compatibility.
Or it's simply possible that that's all the bugs there are. But I doubt that.
However
Ubuntu does have a significant support structure in place capable of dealing with all but the most egreious failures (think broken X server pushed out). Launchpad does a good job of searching for duplicate bug reports to bring people together, and test workarounds / patches. It's also got a way to attach to upstream bugs to follow on with. This is good because compiz's bugzilla is a nightmare.
Xubuntu (Score:2)
Also, while many people seem sceptical about stability I guess we will just have to wait and see how well they handle the cases where 3D acceleration is a problem. I.e, will it be careful about enabling it if a proprietary driver is needed? How well will the crash handler manage to respond if it doesn't work etc... Under the assumption that it will gracefully disable itself when it notices problems it may not be too bad.
There are, or will be, oher ses for this technolog (Score:2)
Is it important? (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Sunday December 10 2006, @10:25AM)
I wish as much work would go into all those things that DO make a big difference, like syncing my mobile phone (not possible), moving mp3s to my mobile phones memory card (not possible), using my mobile phone for internet access (not possible), using my GPS device (not possible), remotely operating my digital camera (not possible), etc.
Awesome! Dell users will love this. (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Thursday December 02 2004, @08:18PM)
I mean it wasn't like the 8600 was *the* desktop replacement to buy about 2.5 years ago,......
Great (Score:2)
Compiz brings out instability. (Score:2)
(http://www.eternaldusk.com/ | Last Journal: Friday July 16 2004, @08:05PM)
From what I've read, the problem is actually nVidia's: Their drivers are sync'd up with Xorg versions prior to the 132_compositing patch. This patch fixes an underlying Xorg issue required for mobile Ubuntu, but it changes the ABI ever so slightly. So, when you try to use Compiz and an OpenGL program with compositing... BLAM, X crashes and you're back to your login prompt.
This is completely reproducible and affecting lots of testers - just read the bug reports at launchpad.net. It seems to affect users of newer cards, going back to at least the 7600 series.
The bug has been around for a while (people reported it upwards of nine months ago on Fedora, according to what someone said in one of the launchpad reports) and nVidia has not released a new version of their drivers built for the new Xorg ABI. I sure hope someone there gets the idea that maybe this needs to be fixed before Gutsy final.
-J
A *very* bad move (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Sunday September 22 2002, @07:02PM)
I have issues (Score:2)
(http://www.loadedguntheory.com/)
Lol (Score:1)
Anyways it will not enable them by default it is a misunderstanding , it will enable them on capable systems with good drivers, there's a difference.
Bloat is a complaint that comes from guys with computers they should have trashed 5 years ago.
My computer is 4 years old and it handles compiz fusion with quite some stability, I just disabled it since Java hasn't fixed issues with it.
If you hard core Linux geeks don't like the idea, just... do what you are doing already, use another 1337er distro.
And some rather obvious usability bugs (Score:2)
I'm torn (Score:2)
(http://tom.digitalelite.com/)
On the other hand, I still can't get Ubuntu to let me play a 3D game (e.g., Tremulous or Guild Wars) while Compiz is active. That and other issues are substantive hurdles that they need to overcome if they intend to push it out and on by default. I'd hate to think that by defualt I couldn't run any 3D games. That would kinda suck.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ [digitalelite.com]
I'm all for bells and whistles... (Score:2)
My Anecdotal 2c (Score:2)
(http://www.glpwd.com/)
* The restricted bcm43xx driver wasn't loading via the restricted driver manager no matter what. (Fixed by "cutting" the firmware ourselves).
* Compviz was pretty, but too slow (simply went in and disabled it).
The specs on her laptop are P4M 1.4Ghz, 1GB ram, ATI 9000 video card, and 80gb hd. This more than Linux worthy machine was having a noticeably hard time with the graphics. Doing simple day to day tasks were noticeably slowed down. Every window operation now took a few seconds instead of being instant, and this wasn't acceptable for my wife.
My suggestion for the Gutsy team is to put together a benchmark for systems, and advise users regarding 3D window management (ala Vista). Barring that, I wouldn't have Compviz enabled by default, but there's nothing preventing stuffing an icon on the desktop asking for users to click on it and try it out.
gutsy woops (Score:1)
I just tried it, and turned back within 5 minutes (Score:2)
(http://www.shareable.org/)
But the real reason I turned it off again was Firefox suddenly wedged at 100%, with blank windows (at first) and then rendered, but still not responding to clicks in its windows. Never mind.
Re:i for one (Score:4, Funny)
We set AC up with the perfect opportunity for a Goatse Gibbon, or a Gutsy Goatse, or a Goatse's Guts, and he swings and misses.
*sigh*
General public (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.apaddedcell.com/)
Actually I love Ubuntu and am looking forward to upgrading to Gutsy when it comes out.
Re:Ubuntu is just Eye Candy (Score:1)
It's worked since day one. Anything "extra" I've gone and screwed up, I've done on my own. I use the terminal almost exclusively. (Shh: for nethack when I'm not doing other things in vi.)
I just wanted a lazy OS that wasn't XP. Would another distro fully recognize my wifi card, wired card, usb devices, etc? It was easy as pie to get my Microchip PICKit2 working. I am sure it would be just as easy in another distro; but at the point I usually want to work on other things, in other distros, I'm still either playing with ifconfig or getting X to work properly...
Plus, Beryl actually does good things for me: I'll run WoW (via Wine) fullscreen, and still have access to other desktops by simply twisting the cube around to another side...
Re:Ubuntu is just Eye Candy (Score:2)
(http://www.ferrus.net/)
Just because many of the people who post on the Ubuntu forums are noobs doesn't mean that the distro itself is only for noobs. Sure, Ubuntu is just Debian with lazy defaults - but for many applications that happens to be exactly what is needed.
Re:This is just typical stupid Canonical thinking (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is just typical stupid Canonical thinking (Score:2)
(http://del.icio.us/Abcd1234/)
Say what? Who doesn't have even a basic 3D accelerator, these days? I mean, sure, Ubuntu *could* tailor their distro to the few people out there still running Mach64 cards, but why would they bother?
Re:This is just typical stupid Canonical thinking (Score:1)
I have been using beryl on 16Mb integrated video card from Intel. Disable most resource-consuming features and it works just fine. You really need no powerful PC to use Compiz.
You need anything more than Nvidia GeForce MX 440 only for very few effects.
Re:This is just typical stupid Canonical thinking (Score:2)
(http://www.imagicity.com/)
Actually, this won't happen, because before Ubuntu made this decision, they developed a default graphical failsafe mode. The story was here on slashdot, so you of all people should have seen it.
I think that Ubuntu has made a smart decision with this. They're taking a small risk because there's some certainty that a noticeable minority of desktops won't be able to run Compiz, but they've hedged their bets by ensuring that these users will not be left with an unusable X Window system. Additionally, turning the compositing features off is trivially easy.
Looks to me like they've got the best graphical Linux behaviour no matter how you look at it.
Re:Ubuntu is just Eye Candy (Score:1)
(http:///#!/)
4000 posts? What do you use your computer for? Posting to the Ubuntu forum?
I've used Linux since 1995 (and different flavors of UNIX before that), was a Debian user for several years, and now use Ubuntu and think its quite good (not perfect but I am happy to use it). If Debian had a 6-month release cycle, I might still be using it, but Ubuntu is the best choice for an apt-based up-to-date Linux distro.
At least someone is working on user interface improvements. But I agree that Compiz Fusion is just not ready to be turned on by default, regardless of what the users want.
Re:Ubuntu (Score:2, Funny)
Re:This is just typical stupid Canonical thinking (Score:2)
(http://www.poromenos.org/)
Re:Ubuntu (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ubuntu (Score:3, Funny)
(Last Journal: Thursday July 12, @12:30PM)
Re:Another stupid name (Score:2, Insightful)
For another shitty distro. Get with the program folks. The general public is not going to buy into this.
I, for one, don't give a teflon turd about what the general public buys. I like it, and will be using it.
Re:Why not the latest? (Score:2)
(http://www.p10link.net/plugwash/)