Take a look at this screengrab from an AMD machine running Linux. What are we seeing? Wobbly, transparent windows, hot UI effects, an amazing 3D task switcher, and enough eye-candy to make Vista Ultimate look like Midnight Commander.
I’m not saying we all go out and pick up a copy of Ubuntu, but maybe that’s actually what I’m saying. What is this machine running? An older GeForce card, a fairly fast processor, and Ubuntu Edgy Eft with Beryl 0.1.3 Window Manager.
The new Beryl 0.1.99.2 beta version is even slicker with updated controls and better transparency on the cube. Hopefully in ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) Beryl will be installed by default.
Yea, it’s all cool – but how useful this really is rather than just for showing off?
The only useful and still cool thing is switching between the virtual desktops in such a cool 3D manner – which with Vista just being launched – will be able to do thanks to some 3rd party app at some point of time…
Can you put a video as a background in Linux?
My two cents :)
Peconi
http://www.VistaJuice.com
> Can you put a video as a background in Linux?
mplayer -rootwin
Someone else might be able to tell you how many years that has been available…
But then you can’t have Stardock’s upcoming add-on for DreamScene where dynamic content can be displayed as well ;)
P.
As ever, we hear “upcoming” this, “at some point of time” that, soon-to-be-released MaWoozle MaWojit gotta have it. Vaporware hype is so 1980.
> But then you can’t have Stardock’s upcoming add-on for DreamScene where dynamic content can be displayed as well
KDE and gnome allow any program to run a root if the rootwin extension, the -root option, is available. So if you use this command
glmatix -root
you would run the xscreensaver as a desktop background. Any dynamic content can be seen as long as the program serving the content has the -root option. The extension has been around since 2003.
This wiki explains about the root window:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_window
KDE will allow any program to run as in a root window if you check the allow programs to run in desktop option or set the program to draw the background image. You may have to make a small script to run certain programs.
So basically you can have ANY program that delivers dynamic content running in the root window. I think this was available in KDE 2.0 so that would have been in ‘99 according to KDE’s website.
Tell me one Distro ships a stable version of this by default ??????
Well it would be Sabayon Linux, the offical distro for Beryl, or Knoppix as both can be installed by default. Well Knoppix is really know as a Live CD, but you can install it to HD if you want so it does qualify.
Fedora and Gentoo have Beryl available in there own repositories, so just a few clicks away for them. Read more about Beryl Distribution Support here:
http://www.beryl-project.org/distros.php
I suspect by the end of the year most of the top distros are going to have them installed by default since Beryl is pretty stable with the current release.
You know how kde configures itself according to the platform the user is used to? How about if they just extended that up to Vista, and used vista and emerald to provide flip3d, dreamscene, and the vista theme? Or if the user selected Mac, it got mac-like backgrounds and screensavers and set them to default?
lol. vista u r pwned.