The Cube Efffect [was: Yanking the Window Shade]
Doing the proper thing and starting a new thread instead. I've heard much of the famed cube effect, and I think I have an adequately powerful test box on which to run it. I'd like to setup the cube effect on my test box in time for an installfest i'm holding at school this Saturday (morning). What are the keywords I need to google? Test Box Vitals: * Core2Duo 2.2GHz (might be slightly more, can't remember) * 2 GB of 800MHz DDRAM (maxed out for mobo) * nVIDIA Geforce 8400 GS 256MB DDR2 PCI-E * Fedora 8 (updated) * Nvidia binary driver installed Arthur Pemberton -- Fedora 7 : sipping some of that moonshine ( www.pembo13.com )
On Jan 24, 2008 10:03 AM, Arthur Pemberton <pemboa@gmail.com> wrote:
I've heard much of the famed cube effect, and I think I have an adequately powerful test box on which to run it.
Compiz. Your machine is plenty powerful. I'm running an (older) 2.8Ghz HT P4 with an nVidia 7600GS card and it runs everything in Compiz very well. A Core2 and latest generation nVidia GPU (even if lwo end) should be fine. I've done Compiz effects on sub-Ghz P3 machiens with old GF2MX-200 cards, and I used to run them all the time on my old GF4MX-440 card until I upgraded to the 7600GS this Christmas. Jon.
On Jan 24, 2008 10:03 AM, Arthur Pemberton <pemboa@gmail.com> wrote:
I've heard much of the famed cube effect, and I think I have an adequately powerful test box on which to run it.
Just install ubuntu gutsy on that beast, and then go to System > Preferences > Appearance and check the Visual Effects tab to choose "Extra". For more control you can then install the compizconfig-settings-manager package (I think?) to get a GUI application that will let you play with all the crazy effects. :-) If you want to stick with Fedora, though, I'm sure there are some rpms for that same stuff. But having a gutsy livecd handy for your installfest could double your options for the other folks who show up. My home boxes that run compiz are a core 2 duo and an athlon64 (though I gave up and used 32-bit ubuntu on it). They both have old-fart nvidia cards and perform quite nicely. At work where I have a few more tricked-out machines, I unfortunately have only ati cards, so no compiz for me. boo! -- Kendric Beachey
First of all, thanks for all the replies. I'll get on this asap. For the curious: http://umkcacm.org/Events/FedoraInstallfestSpring2008 On Jan 24, 2008 10:19 AM, Kendric Beachey <kendric.beachey@gmail.com> wrote:
On Jan 24, 2008 10:03 AM, Arthur Pemberton <pemboa@gmail.com> wrote:
I've heard much of the famed cube effect, and I think I have an adequately powerful test box on which to run it.
Just install ubuntu gutsy on that beast, and then go to System > Preferences > Appearance and check the Visual Effects tab to choose "Extra".
I'm actually not at all experienced with Ubuntu, but that's an option.
For more control you can then install the compizconfig-settings-manager package (I think?) to get a GUI application that will let you play with all the crazy effects. :-)
Cool, I'll remember this.
If you want to stick with Fedora, though, I'm sure there are some rpms for that same stuff. But having a gutsy livecd handy for your installfest could double your options for the other folks who show up.
I already plan on handing out Ubuntu Desktop CDs. Burned and tested a copy yesterday. They will get to keep the Fedora DVD they install from, but will also get the Desktop LiveCD with the recommendation to try that first.
My home boxes that run compiz are a core 2 duo and an athlon64 (though I gave up and used 32-bit ubuntu on it). They both have old-fart nvidia cards and perform quite nicely.
Nice. I haven't seen the need for 64bit yet myself.
At work where I have a few more tricked-out machines, I unfortunately have only ati cards, so no compiz for me. boo!
Hopefully AMD gets off it's butt with ATI soon. -- Fedora 7 : sipping some of that moonshine ( www.pembo13.com )
Can you elaborated on this? I don't follow your meaning. On Jan 24, 2008 12:03 PM, Luke -Jr <luke@dashjr.org> wrote:
At work where I have a few more tricked-out machines, I unfortunately have only ati cards, so no compiz for me. boo!
If you use a Free operating system, ATi is a far better bet than nVidia.
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On Thursday 24 January 2008, Steven Hildreth wrote:
On Jan 24, 2008 12:03 PM, Luke -Jr <luke@dashjr.org> wrote:
At work where I have a few more tricked-out machines, I unfortunately have only ati cards, so no compiz for me. boo!
If you use a Free operating system, ATi is a far better bet than nVidia.
Can you elaborated on this? I don't follow your meaning.
Free as in http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html With a Free operating system, the best you can get a nVidia card to do is 2D acceleration. 3D is left to software rendering (quite slow). The only 3D acceleration for nVidia cards on a Free OS is for BeOS, and some highly experimental long-term project to reverse engineer 3D acceleration (Noveau) that works "for a few lucky developers". On the other hand, ATi cards up to the Radeon X850 have decent 3D acceleration support by the latest X.org and Linux/DRI code, including AIGLX support needed for Compiz. This situation is improving rapidly, with AMD having released specs for their newer GPUs.
On Thursday 24 January 2008 12:03:59 pm Luke -Jr wrote:
If you use a Free operating system, ATi is a far better bet than nVidia.
He does live in his own world, doesn't he? Here, however, the OS remains free even if you use (or include in the distribution) a non-free, proprietary driver.
On Thu, 2008-01-24 at 10:03 -0600, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
Doing the proper thing and starting a new thread instead.
I've heard much of the famed cube effect, and I think I have an adequately powerful test box on which to run it.
I'd like to setup the cube effect on my test box in time for an installfest i'm holding at school this Saturday (morning).
What are the keywords I need to google?
Try "Compiz Fusion" and see what you learn from there. After you have that successfully working, enabling the cube effect is just a matter of configuring preferences. You should not have much trouble getting Compiz installed if you have an Nvidia card with binary drivers working. I'd check to see if Fedora has a package for it (I'm not a Fedora user). Good luck! --Jestin
I've heard much of the famed cube effect, and I think I have an adequately powerful test box on which to run it.
I've got a 2.4GHz P4, 512MB of RAM, and a GeForce 6200 LE, and compiz still runs great. You should be golden. I have no idea *cough* why Vista's graphical effects take so much, but compiz seems to be more along the lines of OS X's graphics effects in terms of power. Only reason I stopped using it was because it doesn't play nice with 3D games and Wine, but most people don't need to worry about that.
On Thu, 2008-01-24 at 10:57 -0600, feba thatl wrote:
I've heard much of the famed cube effect, and I think I have an adequately powerful test box on which to run it.
I've got a 2.4GHz P4, 512MB of RAM, and a GeForce 6200 LE, and compiz still runs great. You should be golden. I have no idea *cough* why Vista's graphical effects take so much, but compiz seems to be more along the lines of OS X's graphics effects in terms of power. Only reason I stopped using it was because it doesn't play nice with 3D games and Wine, but most people don't need to worry about that.
When I used to run regular Compiz (not Compiz Fusion) I had the same problem. Now that I run AIGLX instead of XGL as my compositing window manager, those problems have disappeared. --Jestin
It's in the Fedora repo's. Here's what I used. Installed Packages ccsm.noarch 0.6.0-4.fc8 installed compiz.x86_64 0.6.2-3.fc8 installed compiz-fusion.x86_64 0.6.0-12.fc8 installed compiz-fusion-extras.x86_64 0.6.0-1.fc8 installed compiz-fusion-extras-gnome.x86_64 0.6.0-1.fc8 installed compiz-fusion-gnome.x86_64 0.6.0-12.fc8 installed compiz-gnome.x86_64 0.6.2-3.fc8 installed compiz-manager.noarch 0.6.0-4.fc8 installed compizconfig-python.x86_64 0.6.0.1-2.fc8 installed gnome-compiz-manager.x86_64 0.10.4-3.fc8 installed libcompizconfig.x86_64 0.6.0-3.fc8 installed emerald.x86_64 0.5.2-2.fc8 installed emerald-themes.noarch 0.5.2-2.fc8 installed You may also be interested in these: kicker-compiz.x86_64 : Makes KDE kicker Pager applet work with compiz fusion-icon.noarch : Compiz Fusion panel applet compiz-kde.x86_64 : Compiz kde integration bits compiz-bcop.noarch : Compiz option code generator If you're leading an installfest, you probably already know this, but use: sudo yum install [package] [anotherpackage] [and so on] for each package you want to install. You can drop the .noarch and .x86_64 Make sure you're using the nvidia driver. Start 'compiz-manager' to start compiz fusion. Use 'ccsm' to configure all of it. After installing all this, ccsm will be on the gnome panel at 'System'>'Preferences'>'Look and Feel'>'CompizConfig Settings Manager'. Emerald configuration is available at 'System'>'Preferences'>'Emerald Theme Manager'. Compiz does window management and the compositing. Emerald supplies alternate window decoration with a pretty big catalog of themes. On Jan 24, 2008 10:03 AM, Arthur Pemberton <pemboa@gmail.com> wrote:
Doing the proper thing and starting a new thread instead.
I've heard much of the famed cube effect, and I think I have an adequately powerful test box on which to run it.
I'd like to setup the cube effect on my test box in time for an installfest i'm holding at school this Saturday (morning).
What are the keywords I need to google?
Test Box Vitals: * Core2Duo 2.2GHz (might be slightly more, can't remember) * 2 GB of 800MHz DDRAM (maxed out for mobo) * nVIDIA Geforce 8400 GS 256MB DDR2 PCI-E * Fedora 8 (updated) * Nvidia binary driver installed
Arthur Pemberton
-- Fedora 7 : sipping some of that moonshine ( www.pembo13.com ) _______________________________________________ Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
On Thu, January 24, 2008 10:03, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
I've heard much of the famed cube effect, and I think I have an adequately powerful test box on which to run it.
Note the common thread to these stories: Nvidia graphics cards. If the machine our evangelical wonk had walked up to had had an ATI, it would have been "Oh, um, this should work, maybe if I...." and not the slick pitch he so glibly describes. _Most_ recent Nvidia cards will work. The absolute latest probably won't, because the driver for the card won't be on the Ubuntu CD. I'm real surprised that Ubuntu is managing to distribute a workind 3D driver. Until very recently, they had to be downloaded from Nvidia and compiled for each kernel update, and the Nvidia driver was not being distributed by any of the distros. One thing for sure: a Compiz enabled disk will definitely be a great demonstration of what Linux is and can be - one way or the other.
One thing for sure: a Compiz enabled disk will definitely be a great demonstration of what Linux is and can be - one way or the other.
Just having Compiz enabled really isn't enough. Somebody needs to be able to show off the features. New users will have no idea how to even see the cool effects if nobody is there to show them. To give a good demo, things like window grouping and tabbing need to be shown, as well as add-on applications like the Avant Window Navigator. People need to see that it's more than just having wobbly windows, but Compiz can actually be used for productivity reasons. --Jestin
On Jan 24, 2008 11:47 AM, Jestin Stoffel <jestin.stoffel@gmail.com> wrote:
One thing for sure: a Compiz enabled disk will definitely be a great demonstration of what Linux is and can be - one way or the other.
Just having Compiz enabled really isn't enough. Somebody needs to be able to show off the features. New users will have no idea how to even see the cool effects if nobody is there to show them. To give a good demo, things like window grouping and tabbing need to be shown, as well as add-on applications like the Avant Window Navigator. People need to see that it's more than just having wobbly windows, but Compiz can actually be used for productivity reasons.
Interesting point. Hope I have time familiarize myself with it. -- Fedora 7 : sipping some of that moonshine ( www.pembo13.com )
I was a bit embarrassed during one "educate the Windows user about Linux" situation when the guy I was talking to thought that the multiple virtual desktops were kinda cool (and this was well before Compiz), but he didn't really see the need for multiple virtual desktops in higher-end hardware. While there's some organizational benefit to having more than one desktop on one machine, I couldn't come up with a reason why an average user would gain much from more than one desktop, let alone three or more. What are the advantages of virtual desktops, and why even have more than two virtual desktops? Linux can do several virtual desktops, and Compiz can create a dodecahedron of virtual desktops, but if there's no benefit other than the "my computer is cooler than yours" ego boost, there's not much point to it. --- Jestin Stoffel <jestin.stoffel@gmail.com> wrote:
One thing for sure: a Compiz enabled disk will definitely be a great demonstration of what Linux is and can be - one way or the other.
Just having Compiz enabled really isn't enough. Somebody needs to be able to show off the features. New users will have no idea how to even see the cool effects if nobody is there to show them. To give a good demo, things like window grouping and tabbing need to be shown, as well as add-on applications like the Avant Window Navigator. People need to see that it's more than just having wobbly windows, but Compiz can actually be used for productivity reasons.
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On Jan 26, 2008 8:34 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
I was a bit embarrassed during one "educate the Windows user about Linux" situation when the guy I was talking to thought that the multiple virtual desktops were kinda cool (and this was well before Compiz), but he didn't really see the need for multiple virtual desktops in higher-end hardware. While there's some organizational benefit to having more than one desktop on one machine, I couldn't come up with a reason why an average user would gain much from more than one desktop, let alone three or more.
What are the advantages of virtual desktops, and why even have more than two virtual desktops? Linux can do several virtual desktops, and Compiz can create a dodecahedron of virtual desktops, but if there's no benefit other than the "my computer is cooler than yours" ego boost, there's not much point to it.
I think 2 or 3 desktops makes sense in certain situations. Say you're running something that really 'wants' all the available screen space (like Photoshop)... or, on the other side, if you have 10 instances of BitTorrent going on, it's nice to give them their own desktop. But generally, I don't think they really enhance productivity. I always disable them, personally.
On Jan 26, 2008 9:05 AM, Brendan G <moldybeats@gmail.com> wrote:
I think 2 or 3 desktops makes sense in certain situations. Say you're running something that really 'wants' all the available screen space (like Photoshop)... or, on the other side, if you have 10 instances of BitTorrent going on, it's nice to give them their own desktop.
But generally, I don't think they really enhance productivity. I always disable them, personally.
It's much easier to keep programs of various sorts grouped in to viewable segments than having to manually minimize and maximize windows as you work, or just leaving a ton of windows open and cycling though them. In one VD you can have your music player open with the library available to navigate and in another VD you can have a full screen web browser open and in yet another you can have your word processor open where you are writing a report for college (or where ever) and that's three VDs in use and organized with no window swapping. each screen can stay just how you like it and no matter how much work and other programs you run on another VD your music player and browser are right where you left them, and uncluttered. With a simple keycombo I can switch between VDs faster than cycling though a bunch of windows to find the one I want because I know what the last active window in each VD should be. Once you pick up on separating your workflows by VDs you will increase productivity because you aren't interfering with one project with the windows of another. Jon.
On Jan 26, 2008 9:25 AM, Jon Pruente <jdpruente@gmail.com> wrote:
It's much easier to keep programs of various sorts grouped in to viewable segments than having to manually minimize and maximize windows as you work, or just leaving a ton of windows open and cycling though them. In one VD you can have your music player open with the library available to navigate and in another VD you can have a full screen web browser open and in yet another you can have your word processor open where you are writing a report for college (or where ever) and that's three VDs in use and organized with no window
. . . I have to be able to switch contexts quickly. Unfortunately, I am forced to use Windows, so at any given time I'll have over a dozen windows open, spread out across three monitors. The Windows virtual desktop Power Toy is a joke; it has to individually open and close each window, rather than having a completely separate space for each desktop. The spinning cube is not just eye candy; it is a demonstration of the fact that the VDs really are individual entities. When the phone rings, and I have to lose one context for another, then switch back when I'm done, it would be really nice to be able to do that with a key combo. And one of the best uses of VDs is the Ultimate Boss Mode. If you have something going on that you really don't want anyone else seeing, you do it on a separate VD, so that when your boss or a co-worker walks up to your desk, you're just that quick key combo away from having it completely off your screen, leaving only the window(s) on the current VD showing.
I guess I've just never had sufficient screen real estate for multiple active windows to really appeal to me, except for monitoring purposes. I give the window I'm working in full screen, and may have many others open in the background. I switch to what I want to do - after all, I have only one input channel, so there's really only one window I'm interacting with at a time. I use a second desktop because that concept groups the windows that are accessible with alt-tab. When I do my banking, I have Quicken (via wine) and a browser pointed to my bank open, and alt-tab toggles between just those two when I'm on the banking desktop. I can hop back to the general desktop and alt-tab between email, browsing, and IRC. Amarok is usually minimized, a simple click in the system tray brings me full screen control. Maybe if I upgrade to a 20" widescreen this summer, I'll see the light.
--- "Monty J. Harder" <mjharder@gmail.com> wrote:
And one of the best uses of VDs is the Ultimate Boss Mode. If you have something going on that you really don't want anyone else seeing, you do it on a separate VD, so that when your boss or a co-worker walks up to your desk, you're just that quick key combo away from having it completely off your screen, leaving only the window(s) on the current VD showing.
Of course the icon of the most prominent application on that hidden VD will still show on your screen in the corner. Best not to run any applications at work which use rude pictures (or well-known icons, such as for some form of file-sharing client) for their application icons. ;-) ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
It's much easier to keep programs of various sorts grouped in to viewable segments than having to manually minimize and maximize windows as you work, or just leaving a ton of windows open and cycling though them. In one VD you can have your music player open with the library available to navigate and in another VD you can have a full screen web browser open and in yet another you can have your word processor open where you are writing a report for college (or where ever) and that's three VDs in use and organized with no window swapping. each screen can stay just how you like it and no matter how much work and other programs you run on another VD your music player and browser are right where you left them, and uncluttered. With a simple keycombo I can switch between VDs faster than cycling though a bunch of windows to find the one I want because I know what the last active window in each VD should be. Once you pick up on separating your workflows by VDs you will increase productivity because you aren't interfering with one project with the windows of another.
Jon.
That makes a lot of sense, actually. I guess I don't really think about my desktop in terms of workflows. I usually have windows that are relevant to the task at hand, and a few others (music player, for example). Maybe if I did more multitasking, the virtual desktop idea would make more sense to me. This discussion has made me want to give it another go....
On Jan 26, 2008 11:11 AM, Brendan G <moldybeats@gmail.com> wrote:
That makes a lot of sense, actually. I guess I don't really think about my desktop in terms of workflows. I usually have windows that are relevant to the task at hand, and a few others (music player, for example). Maybe if I did more multitasking, the virtual desktop idea would make more sense to me. This discussion has made me want to give it another go....
It took me a while to get the idea in my head. I was used to minimizing programs when not in use, as I'd been doing that since the late '80s on Amigas where I learned about real multitasking before I got in to UNIX-like systems with even better MT, back when screen real estate mattered even more. I don't remember exactly when I broke from a single desktop setup to using virtual desktops but it is a definite change of pace. It probably really started when I was getting used to multiple VTs on older systems that didn't run a GUI nicely back in the day. Those were PC systems running NetBSD. It's still surprising how advanced the Amiga was (feature wise) when compared to PCs and how long they took to catch up, even just in 32-bit preemptive multitasking and reentrant kernels... I was really happy when Apple put Spaces into 10.5. That made my old G4 mini feel like a much better machine. Jon.
On Jan 26, 2008 3:48 PM, Jon Pruente <jdpruente@gmail.com> wrote:
It took me a while to get the idea in my head. I was used to minimizing programs when not in use, as I'd been doing that since the late '80s on Amigas where I learned about real multitasking before I got in to UNIX-like systems with even better MT, back when screen real estate mattered even more. I don't remember exactly when I broke from a single desktop setup to using virtual desktops but it is a definite change of pace. It probably really started when I was getting used to multiple VTs on older systems that didn't run a GUI nicely back in the day.
I got hooked on virtual desktops back in college when I found out about the "tvtwm" window manager. Haven't been able to go back to single desktop since without a lot of complaining (and since that usually means running Windows as well...a LOT of complaining. ;-) ) I have been fortunate to have a lot of opportunities to use large monitors; this probably helps me get more out of virtual desktops. I tend to run everything maximized all the time. More real estate is more better. As for how I use them, at home my machines have only four desktops (spinny-cube style), usually one with Firefox and one with a terminal session ssh'd to another box with irssi going in a screen session. The other two are used more sporadically when I want to pull up some photos or something. At work I use 8 desktops, two rows of four (non-spinny style due to ATI cards): 1) miscellaneous stuff...music player, nautilus windows, etc. as needed 2) terminal session ssh'd to home (one tab with the irssi screen session, other tabs with bash prompts) 3) usually a specs document or something similar 4) Evolution 5) terminal session with many tabs ssh'd to various server machines in the office 6) terminal session with many tabs on my own box in various directories in various code trees 7) Eclipse 8) Firefox In principle I like a lot of the window grouping/sorting/switching features of Compiz Fusion, and if I had nvidia cards at work so I could run it there I would probably look into those features more. But for now I'm stuck in the "maximized windows on multiple desktops" mindset I've had since about 1993. -- Kendric Beachey
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What are the advantages of virtual desktops, and why even have more than two virtual desktops? Linux can do several virtual desktops, and Compiz can create a dodecahedron of virtual desktops, but if there's no benefit other than the "my computer is cooler than yours" ego boost, there's not much point to it.
I have 4 to 6 virtual desktops. Both my work and home desktops are dual screens at 3200x1200. I've found it very useful over the years. I keep one screen for server and command line stuff, one for a web browser with associated server stuff, one for email, and one left open for other stuff like documents and the GIMP. At work I also have another screen for a web browser and remote desktop stuff, and another one for more server ssh connections. If you do more than one thing at a time, or keep things running in the background, it's much easier to keep it in it's own virtual desktop than always minimizing and maximizing windows. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHno1wE5xXU3JS1mQRAgoYAKCp/nJEpz1V+jHnJbTu8a1yDr2wXACgqOuo gN7xFRC9EIW369pu/8ZUsKc= =I82r -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (13)
-
Arthur Pemberton -
Billy Crook -
Brendan G -
Christopher A. Bier -
feba thatl -
Jestin Stoffel -
Jon Pruente -
Jonathan Hutchins -
Kendric Beachey -
Leo Mauler -
Luke -Jr -
Monty J. Harder -
Steven Hildreth