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Compiz Gets Thumbs-Up for Gutsy Gibbon 303

Posted by Zonk 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 More

Compiz Gets Thumbs-Up for Gutsy Gibbon

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  • and Compiz is what again? (Score:4, Informative)

    by ickypoo ( 568859 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @01:53PM (#20592433)
    Here's your wikipedia. Thanks, submitter.

    Compiz is one of the first compositing window managers for the X Window System that uses 3D graphics hardware to create fast compositing desktop effects for window management.

    • Re:and Compiz is what again? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pebs ( 654334 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @03:50PM (#20594689) Homepage
      Look at how long the submission is. Why would you make it even longer by including a definition of what a relatively popular software component is? You might as well include definition for Ubuntu, Gutsy, and Xorg while you're at it.

      Keep up with the times or use Google/Wikipedia when you don't know what something is (like you just did).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jd ( 1658 )
      Why would you want to compost your desktop? Ohhhh, composite! My mistake. Looks interesting, but there have been many interesting technologies for X that have died. You seen many window managers lately that let you link and scroll between virtual windows as a single gigantic desktop? Desktops-in-desktops also seem to be curiously absent these days. Not sure I've seen many recent 3D projects using PHIGS, either. OpenGL is great, but nothing is great for everything, and PHIGS was a standard extension for X11.

  • What's worrying me... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What name will they use for the release that comes after the "zesty zebra" release?!?

    • Re:What's worrying me... (Score:5, Funny)

      by everphilski ( 877346 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @01:55PM (#20592467) Journal
      What name will they use for the release that comes after the "zesty zebra" release?!?

      anonymous anorexic anacondas

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by sootman ( 158191 )
        I'm just happy this release wasn't 'glistening goatse'. *shudder*

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by i7dude ( 473077 )
      as stupid as it seems...guessing release titles is quite fun.

      my turn,

      asexual alcoholic amoebas
      altruistic arthritic arachnids

      dude.
    • I dunno, I'm still wondering about this version - which end the gust is coming from (or if it is coming out of both ends?)

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by jemenake ( 595948 )

      What name will they use for the release that comes after the "zesty zebra" release?!?
      "[rusty [urmudgeon", followed by "/ntelligent /rma", and then "]azzy ]ason".

  • Compiz is...? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by BloodyIron ( 939359 )
    Sorry, pardon my ignorance, but what is Compiz?

    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: (Score:2)

      by eln ( 21727 ) *
      I don't know why you're saying a description should appear in the article, since you clearly didn't read the article. The second paragraph of the article states:

      Compiz is a compositing window manager that includes a number of highly sophisticated visual effects like window shadows, transparency, and desktop zooming.

      Now, you're right they probably should have put a description in the summary, but then they wouldn't give people (like ickypoo a few posts up) a chance to get a cheap +5, Informative with a Wikipedia link.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by BloodyIron ( 939359 )
        yeah, i've been trying to post an appology outlining that my original post was being written as the original reply was being posted, i didnt see it.

        sorry.

        • Re:Compiz is...? (Score:5, Funny)

          by eln ( 21727 ) * on Thursday September 13, 2007 @02:02PM (#20592575)
          This is simply unacceptable behavior for a Slashdot reader. You never admit that you were wrong, and you certainly never apologize. Next time, reply with something like "The article was Slashdotted, you insensitive clod!"

          I'll forgive you this time, though.

    • Re:Compiz is...? (Score:5, Funny)

      by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) * on Thursday September 13, 2007 @01:59PM (#20592539)

      It's like Beryl. Hope that helps! ; )

    • 3D rendering:
      Desktop cube, see-through windows, other desktop effects (but not with the detailed configurability of Beryl)

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Reverend528 ( 585549 )

        but not with the detailed configurability of Beryl

        or the stability of all of those window managers that don't do the worthless fancy stuff.

    • Re:Compiz is...? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Adult film producer ( 866485 ) <van@i2pmail.org> on Thursday September 13, 2007 @02:16PM (#20592825)
      here, watch it.. better than any wordy description.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Fbk52Mk1w [youtube.com]

    • Re:Compiz is...? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by El Lobo ( 994537 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @02:23PM (#20592943)
      Compiz is the thing that MS gets criticized to death when they dare to use it in their OS (called sometimes bloat, or stupid effects, shit, etc), and that is critically aclaimed when Apple, some Linuzzz distro or use it in their distributions.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by h4rm0ny ( 722443 )

        You got that right! The reason I adopted Linux all those years ago was because it was robust and efficient. I could (and did) compile my kernel to remove unnecessary support for processors I didn't have, SCSI drivers, etc. And now it seems to get more and more filled with bloat and toys like this. I started using Ubuntu about a year ago, just out of laziness, really. But I think I'll go back to Debian. It just feels less flabby and I don't spend my time removing music players I don't want that came by defa

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by someone1234 ( 830754 )
        One thing you forgot, in M$Win it would be enabled by default, and wired in without any chance to remove it.
        With Linux, you at least get a chance to find a distro without it, or be able to remove it completely .

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by sYkSh0n3 ( 722238 )
        MS gets criticized because when they implement it, it hogs system resources and requires bleeding edge hardware to run. My 6 yr old computer will run Beryl with no effect on system performance, but i can't turn on the effects in Vista without my computer slowing to a crawl. (i tried to run it for 30 days so when i said how horrible it was, i could give examples from personal experience. i only made it 10 days, but i got plenty to bitch about.)

  • Bloat++ (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zblach ( 977591 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @01:54PM (#20592455)
    guh. Why not make a package w/ auto-configurable scripts available for install? Put a box in adept, or something "Click here for flashy graphics!!11". I run Kubuntu because I like having a *nix compatible desktop, not because I want another toy. I understand that some people are turned to linux for stability, and some for flashy graphics, but why include by default? Aero competition? Hope it's easily (and completely) removable. -z

    • Why not make a package w/ auto-configurable scripts available for install?

      Because then you have to manage the bloat of having two similar systems that are almost but not quite identical.

      What part of using your card's 3D acceleration to make your whole desktop faster (and optionally prettier at the same time) sounds bad to you? This is almost universally a good thing.

    • s/compiz/kwin/ (Score:5, Funny)

      by DreadSpoon ( 653424 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @02:57PM (#20593703) Journal
      You realize that Kwin is including all of the 3D graphical foofah in new versions, right? Compiz is a WM that you can swap out with Metacity (or anything else) whenever you want, but your desktop is coming with the special effects built-in to the default window manager.

      Thankfully, you're using KDE, so you'll have at least 8 checkboxes to disable it. ;)

    • PureEyeSugar (Score:5, Funny)

      by Nosklo ( 815041 ) <WPARHFOBFDOT AT spammotel DOT com> on Thursday September 13, 2007 @03:37PM (#20594459)
      OOOOOHHH!!! My Eyes! They have Diabetis now! Too much candy!!

  • I don't get it (Score:2, Insightful)

    by pintpusher ( 854001 )
    Maybe I'm becoming more and more of a luddite... I played with compiz a bit maybe a year ago using XFCE and it was pretty cool, but that's all it was. It didn't actually do anything to improve my computing experience other than look cool. That makes it mostly a waste of electrons, IMO.

    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)

      by SlashdotOgre ( 739181 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @02:09PM (#20592695) Journal
      I've been running Compiz in its various forms (compiz-quinnstorm, beryl, now compiz-fusion) on Gentoo since around March of 2006, and while I can see where you're coming from I have found some of its features actually useful. The ones I particularly like are: the expose clone (google 'expose mac to see what I'm referring to), the live alt-tabs (you see what's running in the alt-tab windows), it allows for extensive key bindings (I know you can use other programs like xbindkeys, but it at least beats Metacity's binding capability), and transparency (compiz isn't required to do this, but it makes it a lot easier than other WM's -- basically it's designed with that in mind).

      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.
      • >>> "Most of the eye candy doesn't eat too much CPU...."

        I agree 100%. I've been running the Compiz with heaps of features turned on, on my old machine which is a Athlon 1.9GHZ with 512 RAM and a GForce MX-440 graphics card. (see full specs here [blogspot.com] (see PC called Number2))

        While the specs for my 'number2' machine are pretty good compared to what some people are running Linux on, there probably at the lower end of what 'the average Ubuntu user' has, or at least what is being sold with Ubuntu pre

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ajs ( 35943 )

        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.

        Gutsy doesn't expose the control panel by default. Their default mechanism simply provides a radio dialog with three options: no effets (this turns off compiz), some effects (this enables compiz, but with most features turned off) and lots of effects (this turns on most of the effects that aren't outright disruptive to users who aren't expecting them).

        I would have preferred something between that and the settings manager. I'm also not pleased with being unable to find the window decoration controls (I thin

        • I played around quite a bit with the transparency stuff during my time using it. Its definitely a cool feature and potentially pretty useful in terms of helping with the stacked windows problem of a traditional desktop. No doubt.

          But I don't think it really solves the problem of dragging stuff around with a mouse and the other problems with a traditional WM model. This tiling thing with good keyboard control has blown my productivity through the roof... now if I could just get off /.

          I'm currently running a d

    • Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)

      by kerohazel ( 913211 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @02:10PM (#20592725) Homepage
      For me it's a convenient way to answer someone who asks me "Linux? Why do you use _Linux_?"

      Not much of a meaningful answer, but then again when posed like this it's not really a meaningful question.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by ericrost ( 1049312 )
      Maybe this'll help, with a decent 3d graphics chipset, it makes the desktop more responsive by offloading the desktop rendering to the GPU completely.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ArcherB ( 796902 ) *
      Maybe I'm becoming more and more of a luddite... I played with compiz a bit maybe a year ago using XFCE and it was pretty cool, but that's all it was. It didn't actually do anything to improve my computing experience other than look cool. That makes it mostly a waste of electrons, IMO.

      But then, I now use wmii almost exclusively, if I'm not just using plain ol' screen.

      damn, you be a good poster and go check your links and there goes that frsit psot. oh well..

      Keep in mind that Ubuntu is all about ease of use

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Teun ( 17872 )

        It is not intended for users who see beauty in Blackbox or WM. But, I think that is the joy of Linux.
        Hmm, strange thought.
        Ubuntu is not so much about ease of use, it's the desktop that has the main influence independent of distribution.

        The success of Ubuntu is in the ease of installation.

        So even with on Ubuntu it is possible to see beauty in Blackbox or WM, just easier to get it up and running.

    • Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Nutty_Irishman ( 729030 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @02:21PM (#20592907)
      I originally thought the same thing with Beryl (the breakoff from Compiz, which is now remerging into compiz-fusion), and thought, "hey it looks nice, but that's about it". I left it installed on my machine as it was pretty stable and didn't see a need to remove it. After a while I started rearranging and managing my desktop-- all development work in one window, terminal windows in another, email/web browser in another, and the last for visualization apps (imageJ, matlab, etc.). It wasn't until I had all four desktops being active used that I realized how much easier it was to multitask with a more sophisticated windows manager. I could actively switch between desktops fast, drag and drop items from one desktop to the other, separate global and local task switchers-- all much faster and with less downtime than before. Now I find it rather limiting to use a linux box that doesn't have it installed.

      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: (Score:2)

        by Ajehals ( 947354 )
        I find that a decent pager will give you most of the benefits without any of the drawbacks, although I should admit that after installing beryl on etch I found its a nice to have if you have the hardware and if you are likely to need to demo Linux to people, you can use the; "its secure, its fast, its robust and its pretty [spin the cube...weeeee]". At the end of the day it comes down to what you want and what makes you more productive, if its productivity you are after you can probably give beryl a miss.
      • Have you found a way to switch between workspaces _without_ animations. That is without rotating cubes, sliding desktops, ... The only two things holding be back from using compiz are this animated workspace switching (it gets quite annoying if you switch a lot) and that partly offscreen windows are visible on adjacent workspaces.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pembo13 ( 770295 )
        I'm pretty sure current DEs handle the niceties you described. KDE allows that for sure. Or did I misunderstand?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Trifthen ( 40989 )
      Did you run top while using Compiz? I'd think letting the video-card handle all the effects (vid cards these days handle games with requirements far more brutal than a wussy little desktop) would be way more efficient than rectally violating the CPU. I've seen X bolt to the top of my CPU lists frequently, and I just roll my eyes every time.

      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
    • When a window is covered/exposed you don't need to redraw the window contents - a copy is already on the graphics card.

      This makes the whole machine feel more snappy when you move windows around.

      Spinning windows also stimulates normal users drool glands. Doing it better than Vista is a good thing (and let's face it, that's not hard to do).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Teun ( 17872 )

      It didn't actually do anything to improve my computing experience other than look cool. That makes it mostly a waste of electrons, IMO.

      I find it (Beryl in my case) to accelerate most things I do on the desktop.
      Switching between open windows is clearly more agile.

      The most remarkable thing I noticed is that my GF (yeah, OK this is /.) finally grasped the concept of having multiple tasks open at the same time when she saw them in 3-D on the cube.
      Previously she would routinely close one application before opening the next, now she just flips between them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ant P. ( 974313 )
      I agree that most of it is throwaway flashiness, but there's a few good things. IMO it's worth it just for the arbitrary key/mouse/screen-corner bindings.
      My main problem with it is that it kills all the 2D acceleration on my old Radeon. I tried turning on the EXA stuff but that only made it _worse_!

  • to boldly go... (Score:3)

    by downix ( 84795 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @01:55PM (#20592487) Homepage
    or to crash and burn, that is the question. Ubuntu might be making a brave move, or a bad move, but only time will tell. If their gamble pays off, they might be on the cutting edge, and with a marketable, noticeable advantage. If not, well... there's always Knoppix.

  • well... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13, 2007 @01:57PM (#20592505)
    as long as that "fallback configuration tool" that was linked here a few weeks ago works properly, i guess it shouldnt cause too many problems. lets hope that the installer will intelligently choose the correct manager.
  • I played around with Beryl a while back. Unfortunately, it was during a period when they were having problems with SVN and their website was hacked and taken down. Since then, I got the gist that they were working towards an un-fork with Compiz.

    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
  • How about running on my Inspiron 8000 nVidia GeForce2Go?

    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?

    • I just want to offload some X processing from my CPU to my graphics chip, to make the workstation run faster overall.

      Compiz doesn't actually do that in practice yet. On a reasonably modern CPU + GPU combo it won't slow you down, but the current version doesn't speed you up compared to a traditional window manager. Further, your graphics card (GeForce 2 Go) is old enough that it would have to offload a significant chunk of the rendering work to the CPU anyway.

      Based on the last benchmarks I saw, the minimum

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nimey ( 114278 )
        Yeah. I was using a GF2MX (probably similar to the GF2Go) with Ubuntu & Compiz a few months ago. Slow enough that it was Definitely Not Worth It and I quickly went back to Metacity.

        The box I'm using at the moment has a GF4 MX440 card (Athlon 2600+) and it's pretty snappy with Gutsy and Compiz Fusion.
  • the decision to include Compiz by default certainly is Gutsy.
  • I browsed the article but didn't see it specify how they'll be going about getting the effects. I presume AIGLX, although in personal experience (been running compiz since the coffee-buzz days on Gentoo), XGL has been the better performer (albeit it requires the proprietary ATI fglrx drivers). For the last couple months I switched to the r300 drivers on my Dell D610 laptop with the X300M card, and while I like the fact that it's free, I do admit I got better performance from fglrx (which doesn't support A
    • It will be entirely through AIGLX, which does work with the ATI open-source drivers (not fglrx) on many ATI cards. There is no way Gutsy would ship with Xgl (let alone by default).

      So as far as I know, it will ship with open-source Intel and ATI and binary NVIDIA drivers by default, with Compiz activated on all cards that support it.

  • View from the bottom (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fishthegeek ( 943099 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @02:25PM (#20593011) Journal
    I teach at a technical high school, and I use Ubuntu, Vista, XP, and OS X in the course for integration lessons. The kids Ooooh at Vista and OS X but when they discover that Ubuntu can do compositing in a flashier way (with Compiz Fusion) than either of the other two platforms and that it is free they immediately ask for one of the Ship it CDs that I happen to keep around.

    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)

      by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @03:06PM (#20593881)

      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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Qubit ( 100461 )

      Flashy sells. It sells cars, bombers and hookers why not use it to sell an OS?

      Interesting idea....what if we were to use hookers to market our favorite Gnu/Linux distros... But hold on a second: People are just going to see through whatever superficial "Candy Coat" we wrap around the OS, right?

      ...remember that these are primarily 15 year old kids...

      Nevermind. Just put some pics in the default install and you'll have hordes of teen boys installing Ubuntu in no time...

  • I still read that as "A Composting Window Manager".

    I guess it depends on what kind of windows you have open.

  • Stability Now (Score:3, Insightful)

    by keithjr ( 1091829 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @02:41PM (#20593363)
    Depending on how stable all related drivers and devices are by the time Gutsy rolls out, this may very well be the worst thing that could happen to Ubuntu since that bad Xorg update last year.

    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)

    by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @02:50PM (#20593543) Homepage Journal
    They have released the docs for their GPU. I have been told time and time again on Slashdot that all that has to happen is to document your hardware and a legion of FOSS programmers will write a better driver than you could.
    So why does Intel need to address anything?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by krmt ( 91422 )
      RTFA. No one's bothered to really work on it because Intel already employs a fair number of developers to work on the driver out in the open. As a result, the majority of work on the driver is done by them. As Matthew says, anyone could do this if they wanted to, but the people who currently have the required skills at X.org and Intel are working on more pressing issues right now. X.org is still trying to recover from years of relatively closed development at XFree86, so there's groundwork to be covered (th

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by LWATCDR ( 28044 )
        So without the company that created the hardware dedicating resources to a driver project the driver may or not be done in a timely manner.
        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 legal

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by krmt ( 91422 )
          I hope you're not trolling here. X.org has very few contributors as a whole. Maybe 20 or so, with about half who do real work on the graphics drivers. That's really not very many for such a large amount of code. So no, I'm sorry to break it to you, but there's no armies of experienced graphics driver coders just itching to write those drivers. If you believe that then you're living in a fantasy land.

          On the flip side, it's becoming easier and easier to get involved, for those who are interested. XFree86's pr

  • Compiz-Fusion is of value even without the fancy.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Vspirit ( 200600 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @03:26PM (#20594269) Homepage
    Since the 3D engine and direct rendering features accelerate rendering windows, toolbar, systray etc.. it ought to be of value to all, even the X users that only use X to open terminal windows and|or use multiple monitors. (most of you guys use web browser also anyways).

    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)

    by massysett ( 910130 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @03:43PM (#20594573) Homepage
    If there has to be "vigorous debate" about something like this, then it is not ready to be turned on by default, plain and simple. The article says the developers don't know how stable Compiz-Fusion is, because they don't have data, etc. But they have doubts, which is all that matters. It would be fine to go forward with turning it on by default if all the devs ran it and none experienced any problems. Instead, there are known problems (such as this Intel problem) and some of the devs acknowledge that the thing can crash once a DAY, which is consistent with other experiences I have read as well.

    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)

      by xenocide2 ( 231786 ) on Thursday September 13, 2007 @05:11PM (#20595871) Homepage
      If we don't get it out it'll never be good enough
      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.
  • Is it fair to assume it will be turned of by default on Xubuntu? Doesn't make much sense to enable shiny desktop effects on a distro designed to be compatible with older hardware...

    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 assu
  • While people complain about needless flashy graphics what this is really intended for is a framework for putting the GPU to work on tasked like image processing. See how Apple's "Core Image" works.

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