openSUSE 10.2 @work

openSUSE 10.2 @work

After testing out openSUSE 10.2 @home and being exceptionally satisfied with the new release I decided to go for clean install on workstation @office, replacing the good old SUSE 10.1. As previously, I opted for GNOME desktop environment, the reasons being: 1) PC features P4 2.8Ghz with 1GB RAM and i865 32MB shared memory video chip (unlike what I have @home): 2) using both KDE and GNOME is better, and I have such an opportunity (btw, I am thinking of using XFCE as well on my old notebook, which is running GNOME right now); 3) I can be the guru of popular DEs :-p (joking)

This time around I decided to make some time-line while going with clean install of openSUSE 10.2, so you can see how time consuming it is (the question put forth - “is it?”). This is how it breaks down: 0060717vba0 openSUSE 10.2 @work

9:30 – Starting clean installation
9:40 – Package installation started
9:58 – Basic installation completed
10:03 – Network configuration finished
10:05 – Users configuration completed
10:09 – Hardware configuration finished
10:10 – First instance of GNOME desktop loaded

It took me around 40 minutes to be up and running openSUSE 10.2. All the hardware drivers were installed automatically. Now, compare that to WindowsXP installation. Once all this was done I started setting up the desktop to my preferences - the reorganisation of the desktop, themes and components such as fonts, windeco, icons, layout, etc. Also added the list of recommended repositories, which I stated in my previous post (got tonnes of hits on that post - to be exact - around 7,000 on whole) and updated the system to the latest available packages and enabled all multimedia related stuff. Hooked my workstation to the company’s network, set-up the printers on LAN and authentications. This all took me another 40-60 minutes, as I wasn’t in hurry and wanted to explore the new stuff in GNOME DE.

Clean desktop with some layout changes

Now regarding enabling the Xgl/Beryl. I am getting confused now with Xgl/Beryl/Compiz/AIGLX !!! There is option to go with Compiz packages that are supplied by openSUSE 10.2, and updates via repository, and there is Beryl which is also there. Now, Compiz is considered more stable than Beryl, but I think (and find) Beryl easier to setup than Compiz, and it has better manager and more plugins (am I right with my conclusion?). Even more to this, there is option to setup up Beryl with Xgl or without Xgl but with AIGLX. As far as I understand, AIGLX is well supported by nVidia, and ATI is better with Xgl (the latest hardware from both), but then what about intel i865. From this post I see that AIGLX is better option, but then I have tried Beryl with Xgl on SUSE 10.1 and it worked. OK, so I decided to go old and tested method …. or should I have gone with AIGLX option, but then what I need to add in xorg.conf file for my i865 graphics chip.

Somebody explain me in lame words the difference …. can’t they come up with one solution that has the best from both camps!

Enabling 3D acceleration via sax2 and setting up Beryl with Xgl took me another 15 minutes including my preferences (expect a small Howto for this soon)

Running Beryl with Xgl

All in all, within 2 hours my office computer is ready for work to be done. Now ain’t that simply marvellous. I’d still like to install couple of more applications, which are missing from repositories right now …. will wait as don’t have time to compile them here.

I really like the Deskbar featured in GNOME 2.16. This is my first real encounter with this application and I really would like to have some applet like this on my KDE desktop @home. The new GNOME menu is also good, though I have written previously that there are few features that I find missing and would like to see them in future releases. Apart from that some other small tweaks from Novell/openSUSE in GNOME (in KDE as well) are also nice and welcomed.

The system also feels more responsive, including the network behaviour. I think you can understand that I am very-very satisfied with this release, and once again I am convinced that this is the best distro for me, @home and @office, with Kontact and Evolution, Kopete and Gaim, KDE and GNOME, Firefox and …. hmmm … guess again Firefox :]

That was my 2cents for ya’ll thinking of deploying openSUSE 10.2 on your office computer.

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Comment by Vagabond on December 12, 2006

I too have issues with figuring out which “eye candy” is better. I am a Fedora user and compwiz comes pre installed on Core. It is a one click to turn it on (unless you need nvidia drivers) and boom it is working.

On one of my systems I took the time to install Beryl. And yes they have MUCH more options and it will be different with each user once they go in there and start changing things.

Fyi, I am grabbing the 10.2 DVD right now. (well for the last 2 days) just because of your blog. Keep up the good work.

Comment by liquidat on December 13, 2006

About Beryl and Compiz: Compiz is the original version, Beryl is the fork with more addons and the better community support. It is unlikely that these two will merge in the close future because Beryl was forked just recently. Technically at the moment both are easy to set up and easy to use because pacakges are provided for all big distributions.

About AIGLX and Xgl:
Xgl is a technical experiment to show that you can implement a X server fully in OpenGL. In long terms there should finally emerge the new architecture Xegl.
However, Xgl is implemented in a rough way: it brakes with current X standards and is not compatible with applications which need these standards (no, I unfortunately do not have an example).
Also, it completely works on top of OpenGL - so you need a graphic card with a decent OpenGL driver.
AIGLX has been developed inside of the X project in the way that it kept compatibility with the standards. It extends the abilities of X to render stuff also with OpenGL direct - that makes it possible to have on-time effects on the desktop (given that you have a composition manager like Compiz). Again, you need some decent OpenGL drivers which also provide specific support for AIGLX - the current fglrx (proprietary ATI) does not provide such support, but the free ATI driver does!

So, which one to use?
If you depend on fglrx (the Open Source ati drivers do not perform as good as the fglrx atm), use Xgl - no question there.
If you do not, you are free to choose (yes, the current nvidia drivers do support “AIGLX”; actually they come with their own direct rendering and replace AIGLX, but that doesn’t matter here). And from a pure users point of view it doesn’t really matter because in the end the functionality of Compiz/Beryl is the same, independent from the underlying structure.
Personally I prefer AIGLX because it is part of the official X server and therefore automatically available on all modern distributions while Xgl needs extra packages. From my point of view AIGLX is the future if you think in short time lines. In the long run Xgl or better said Xegl is most likely the future. But we are not there yet.

Hm… I should just write a blog post about it instead of writing endless long comments ;)

Comment by E@zyVG on December 13, 2006

Tnx for explanation, liquidat.

Can you write a nice post on your blog concerning this, if you can, and also give some insight if there is any performance difference between Xgl/AIGLX overall and when used specifically, lets say with ATI/nVidia/Intel graphic chips.

Also, when Xgl is enabled it is not possible to launch other instance/application utilising OpenGL libraries, such as games and Google Earth (has that something to do with proper xorg.conf settings). Is it also same with AIGLX!

BTW: I didn’t add anything extra for i865G in xorg.conf to run Beryl with Xgl. Do I have to, as with nVidia/ATI …. maybe I will get better results so!

UPDATE: Compared to what performance i saw when SUSE 10.1 was installed here, with GNOME 2.12, with openSUSE 10.2 the desktop with Beryl is definitely faster.

Hm, I wrote down anything I know - unfortunately I never had the chance to make real performance comparisons, maybe you want to ask the guys at phoronix.com if they can do something like that?
But I never had problems starting other OpenGL apps with AIGLX - can’t you even start stuff like glxgears?

I would like to help in case of the xorg.conf stuff, but stuff like that is done automatically in Fedora (this auto-stuff will be integrated in X.Org 7.2 and 7.3). And I never tried to run Xgl on a normal machine, I always tested preconfigured Live-CDs, sorry. :/

Comment by E@zyVG on December 15, 2006

Yes, the latest being, as of writing this, Beryl 1.3 (compiz is also there), which can be found in openSUSE Xgl repository. Check my post on recommended list of repositories post as well.

Comment by Jason on March 07, 2007

I have been using XGL on my Suse 10.2 machine and I have been facing a long running issue.”the suse start menu freezes up and there is nothing much I could do unless a COLDBOOT.
Is anyone aware of this problem ? If so is there a fix ?

I would also want to try installing Beryl.. Has anyone got a very good post which would give cleaner install methods to do this.