Compiz Gets Thumbs-Up for Gutsy Gibbon 303
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."
Compiz is...? (Score:2, Interesting)
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...
well... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
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: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.
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.
Re:I don't get it (Score:3, Interesting)
I've actually been waiting for it to stabilize and for Compiz and Beryl to quit arguing amongst themselves for just this reason. The eye candy is nice, but I just want a system that doesn't throw a tantrum because I'm desktop-switching. From the Google videos I've seen of Compiz in action, that doesn't look like a problem.
Why is it Intel's problem? (Score:3, Interesting)
So why does Intel need to address anything?
Compiz-Fusion is of value even without the fancy.. (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
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:What's worrying me... (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't think users will use a 3D accelerated desktop? Forget the breathtaking effects this brings, the performance makes 2D X look slow and crappy.
Re:Why is it Intel's problem? (Score:3, Interesting)
So if a company wants their driver in the Kernel they will have to not just release the documentation but dedicate programming staff to the project. So they pretty much have to make the same effort as they would with a closed source driver but also prepare the documentation, manage the open source contributions if they get any, and make sure that their software is legally clean to publish as open source.
So what I am hearing is that I shouldn't hold my breath for those new good FOSS drivers for ATI.
Re:and Compiz is what again? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's neat, but I suspect that it's not very well engineered. [ohloh.net]
Re:I don't get it (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:and Compiz is what again? (Score:3, Interesting)