compiz fusion??

Does anyone know when compiz fusion is comming out? I'm going to be new to Ubuntu, and I'm kind of clueless to this stuff. So should I install Ubuntu first, and then install compiz fusion?

Thanks!

 

Compiz Fusion, a result of a merger between the two desktop effect projects Beryl and Compiz, is still in alpha stages of development and is considered quite unstable; basically not reliable enough for everyday use and productivity.

If you are looking for desktop effects, Beryl is much more mature and has an abundance of documentation and how-to guides on the Internet as well as the Ubuntu forums.

 

I suggest you install ubuntu, get a feel for it. Then try to install beryl as it requires some work in the terminal and editing of config files. Its really not that bad and its an excellent learning experience to teach you the relationship between the X11 server and your window manager. But go with beryl for sure because when they say something is unstable in linux, they REALLY mean it. You don't want to have to worry about screwing up your graphics card drivers and being greeted by the "your X11 server failed to start" screen and a terminal.

 

To clarify, The Beryl Project was a fork of Compiz due to differences in the development team and a desire to add more functionality to the project. Compiz Fusion, as bc135 has stated, is a result of the two projects merging back together again.

Currently, there has been no official release of Compiz Fusion, so for the time being, you will have to use either Compiz, or Beryl. I've personally never tried Compiz, but Beryl is not exactly a perfectly stable production quality program. Depending on your graphics capabilities and other factors, you may have all sorts of problems with it. I know some people that swear by it, however, personally as pretty as it is to look at (and despite having more than adequate hardware), I've stopped using it myself, as I've found it to be little more than eye candy, at the expense of additional bugs in the system.

I say, still give it a shot if you're interested, but if you have an ATi graphics card, you'll probably be sorely disappointed. I personally had a bug on my laptop that when Beryl was active, if I pressed "shift+backspace" it would restart X (that's not quite, but effectively the same as logging off and back on). I had much better success on my desktop with an nVidia card, though that wasn't exactly bug free either (windows would appear totally black if I ran out of video memory).

So, give it a shot, and remember, if it doesn't work out for you, you can always get a refund.

 

As others have pointed out, compiz, beryl, and compiz-fusion work on top of your OS. So you have to install, in your case, Ubuntu first. And then you can choose to install addons like these. If you like to play with your OS then you can try your hand at installing one of these.

I installed compiz first, and then removed that and installed beryl, and now have removed that and installed compiz-fusion. It works fine, and I haven't noticed any problems with running it. My problem with beryl was that while it was relatively stable, nothing much development-wise was going on with it, as everyone seems to be working on making a stable compiz-fusion release (which is good IMO).

I wouldn't want to install beryl on a new Linux install today, only to have to remove it to install compiz-fusion sometime in the near term. So my advice would be that if you like to tweak your OS, you should just go ahead and try compiz-fusion. It will require using Google, reading various howto's, and a fair amount of work, to get it up and running, but it'll be worth it.

My caveat is that I don't use Ubuntu, I use Gentoo, and my laptop is what I would call "Linux friendly". Intel CPU, Intel wifi, nVidia graphics, Asus laptop. It's easier for me to install bleeding edge stuff on Gentoo, as opposed to Ubuntu, especially on "Linux friendly" hardware, but YMMV.

 

Thanks for all your post!

First, I'm going to try installing Ubuntu on my really old and slow desktop. But I still have to wait for my Ubuntu CD. When I get my laptop, I'm also going to install Unbuntu on it. To tell you the truth, I'm getting Ubuntu solely for the looks.

I think I've used linux before, well on school mac computers. Its seems easy to use, and I'll give it a try. I'm going to install Ubuntu once the Ubuntu CD gets here and play around with it. Once I get used to it, I'll download Compiz Fusion (hopefully it'll come out by then). So from what I read, Compliz Fusion, beryl, compliz affects mostly the looks? What do they do?

I've been looking around, and it seems like some programs/games won't work on Ubuntu. I'm now using Firefox, so I can get used to that. I remember hearing some software named amaroK is worth the switch to Linux. What programs/bots are the most useful on Ubuntu?

Thanks!!!

 

If you're using it for the eye candy (which is okay, I know some others like that), I wouldn't use an "old and slow desktop". While the regular installation doesn't take a fast computer, if you want to use Compiz Fusion, you're going to want a faster computer (with a decent, non-ATi graphics card).

I think one of the great things about Linux is that you CAN run it on older hardware and still have it be usable (which is much more that can be said about Windows), but not if you want all the eye candy.


If you don't want to wait for the CD, you can just go ahead and download Ubuntu and burn it onto a CD (guide here). Though since you plan to try it on an older computer, you may want to try Xubuntu as well, it uses the lighter weight Xfce as the default desktop environment instead of GNOME.

As for what programs to use, one of the nice things about Linux in general is that most programs are free*, so it doesn't cost anything to try out different programs. Don't be afraid to just browse the repositories**, and download various programs to try that look interesting. As for specific programs, tell us what you type of program you want, and we'll give you suggestions.

Since you mentioned amaroK, which is a music player, for music I'm going to give my vote to Quod Libet, it doesn't LOOK as nice as amaroK does, and it doesn't have as many features (like Wikipedia lookup), but I've found it gives me more control over the way I sort and browse my music collection.



*Note: I'm referring to both cost as well as licensing. Keep in mind that if you hear a FOSS (Free Open Source Software) advocate talk about free vs. non-free, it's usually in reference to the license on the source code, and not the cost. Most Linux software with restrictive (non-free) licenses is still free in cost.

**Note 2: Keep in mind, Linux is not Windows, you will need to do things differently. For example, in Windows, when you install new software, you go to a webpage where it's hosted, download and install it (or install off a CD or something). In most Linux distributions, Ubuntu included, when you install new software, you basically go to a list of programs (packages), and select the ones you want, and it will use that interface to download and install the program for you. The collection of packages for a distribution is called its repository.
I've run into Windows expert friends who try out Linux, and they give up because they try and install a program they downloaded, and they give up because they try to install from source (much more complicated), instead of just using the repositories.

 

I don't think it's been mentioned yet. Ubuntu installs compiz during a normal install. I do not know whether it is always installed or the installation process decides to install it only for hardware that can run it. Anyway, on my machine it was installed without me requesting it. You can then go into System -> Preferences -> Desktop Effects and turn the eye candy on.

Using that can be an option for someone who does not want to go down the Beryl or Compiz Fusion route yet.