Sorry to rain on your parade, but multiple desktop is something that’s been around for eons.
It’s about as new as spice racks.
The usefulness factor is undoubtable though.
Martin[/quote]
They have racks for spices now? What will they think of next ;).
Yeah, I knew Linux had multiple desktops for a long time, I just thought the transition feature was quite intuitive.
3D Desktop is a desktop switching tools with openGL based transitions. It has been around since a couple of years too.
Given, the one Novell did is probably much better because all of X uses GL, but still, the idea isn’t new.
Martin
Well, I’ve seen a number of videos about Windows Vista’s new and amazing UI changes, such as the highly acclaimed Avalon technology and general interface effects.
Then XGL comes along. 8)
Seriously, I can’t help but snicker when I see videos like this and this, after seeing this.
Look how excited MS developers get about transparency and simple transitions. I was expecting Vista to be what XGL is, but now Vista looks like quick patch to XP.
The best part about XGL is that it actually appears to enhance the user experience with useful features. Most of the new things in Vista seem to be toys that will more than likely slow you down rather than speed you up.
I have a pretty fast computer, yet I use the Windows classic UI, becuase it’s at least twice as fast as the XP themed version.
Hmmm, shift key slows down effects, Windows-key-tab switches processes, no hooks for skinning, won’t shear windows and there’s no more of the background screen drawing when a process has hung. Sounds familiar. I can’t believe they had the audacity to use the same hotkeys though. That’s just like saying, look how far we can go and still get away with it.
Look how excited MS developers get about transparency and simple transitions. I was expecting Vista to be what XGL is, but now Vista looks like quick patch to XP.
That’s what I thought - playing video underneath the taskbar and seeing it isn’t something to get excited about. I still don’t get why you need such a high-end graphics card as rumours suggest will be required for Vista. But then again, the new Solitaire looked awesome, must be using all 256MB Vram %|. I liked it that even with such a high-end card, the window still flickered when he resized one of the windows in the demo. Notice he doesn’t resize any windows after that. Quite pathetic in comparison.
I would say it is a waist of time.
I have used quite a few flavors of linux. I got Red Hat 5.2 about a month or two before they “went public.” I have used since then mandrake, debian, tubo, SUSE I have no real loyalty to any distro. In that time I have used most of the WMs available and have no real loyalty to anyone of them either. I have also ranged from using only one Virtual desktop to 25 (way to many to be perfectly honest)
The fact that you can set it so that if your cursor hits the edge your display the desktop changes is perhaps the most usefull part of a Virtual Desktop. I do not see where wraping one or more around a cube to be displayed several at once on one desktop is going to do more then cluter the one desktop you have compiled 6 into. It is going to limit your view to at most 3 of them pressed into one screen with no increase in resolution. From the graphic I saw on the site you linked it is in fact going to even waist part of the one desktop to give the illusion of a cube.
The big question is WHY?
I am not saying anything about the OSX enviroment. I have not used it, have no opinion on it, and would not make any guesses on wether or not I would like it.
Because Microsoft is doing it, that’s why.
Another reason is that it helps you visually understand what’s happening when you’re doing things, even if it’s only an illusion, it gives you a sense of realism and immersiveness. It’s also a demonstration of what is possible using this technology, so if anyone ever saw a better use for it, then they could go ahead and create their idea.
Most of all, it makes you look cool.
most linux users would say this is the best reason not to do it.
Realism? how many people do you know that stick thier pencils on the left leg of their desk, thier paper clips on the right leg, thier monitor face down under thier desk (so that the desk need to be turned on it’s back to see it? This does not model the real world which is what the human brain is trained to understand from infancy up.
I have explained virtual desk tops to people who where technically illiterate by simply saying “It is like searching your desk at work. you do not look at the whole desk top at one time you look where the object you want is and do not pay attention to the rest.”
Follow that up with “Think of it like looking at the items at the top left, top center, top right, bottom left, center and right. You put the stuff there so you know where it is. Move the cursor in the direction you want to look.”
I have yet to find anyone who would let themself use a computer who did not get it. I put it this way because my 80 yo grandmother refuses to touch a computer. She says they are to confusing.
demonstation may be a valid reason. but some of the stuff I saw there I have used and found that the draw backs out weigh the benifits. If that is what they want to show then we come back to WHY?.
Case in point is transparent windows for text. I play EQ a lot. Now I know that in most comp apps you will not get this result but if you make window transparent in EverQuest you will not be able to see the text in all zones. You will have to change the text color to contrast with backgrounds.
Now to translate that to a more general computer situation what is most likely to happen with your transparent windows is you are going to end up with a transparent text window over another text window. Have you ever tryed to read a sheet of paper that had one messege printed over a different message? The same thing is going to happen when you get two text windows over each other. The letters are most likely going to mix in such a way so as to make them both hard to read.
Looking cool and being cool are two definately differnt things. By the time most people figure this out they realize one more thing. Only the young and foolish think looking cool is importaint. That means they have been looking foolish to most of the people out there by trying to look cool. That realization coming at the wrong moment can be quite emarasing (that happened to me too, let’s just say it involved trying to impress a young lady and leave it at that).
Now THAT’s what I call value. 
A LOT of things are borrowed/copied/emulated from Windows. Without copying Windows, Linux would not be what it is today.
Case in point is transparent windows for text. I play EQ a lot. Now I know that in most comp apps you will not get this result but if you make window transparent in EverQuest you will not be able to see the text in all zones. You will have to change the text color to contrast with backgrounds.
No one said you have to use transparency all the time. You might want to browse the web and make your browser 90% transparent, just enough so you can see the status bar of something you’re downloading or installing in the background. You don’t need to ‘read’ a status bar.
Or you may be watching a movie, but then a boring scene starts playing. Knowing that you don’t need to watch this part of the movie, but you still want to know what’s going on, you put it behind the transparent browser window and start browsing the web while still being able to see whether or not something’s happening in the movie and still being able to hear it.
That’s just a couple of examples that I would personally find useful.
Looking cool and being cool are two definately differnt things. By the time most people figure this out they realize one more thing. Only the young and foolish think looking cool is importaint. That means they have been looking foolish to most of the people out there by trying to look cool. That realization coming at the wrong moment can be quite emarasing (that happened to me too, let’s just say it involved trying to impress a young lady and leave it at that).
I absolutely agree, but the XGL effects do look cool. A better argument might be; is it worth potentially slowing down the computer just to have something that looks pretty? IMO, it isn’t worth sacrificing performance for beauty, but we won’t know what the performance is like until we try it.
fwiw, I wasn’t being serious about looking cool being the most important part, lol.
Why do it?
Why not?
At least you will have the option, which is what linux is about, make it whatever you damn well want - no limitations.
most linux users would say this is the best reason not to do it.
[/quote]
A LOT of things are borrowed/copied/emulated from Windows. Without copying Windows, Linux would not be what it is today.
[/quote]
Without copying unix, Windows would not be what it is today.
Or a better rephrase… Without “copying” knowledge, humanity wouldn’t be where it is today.
I absolutely agree, but the XGL effects do look cool. A better argument might be; is it worth potentially slowing down the computer just to have something that looks pretty? IMO, it isn’t worth sacrificing performance for beauty, but we won’t know what the performance is like until we try it.
This is exactly what XGL is all about! Performance! Draw evering possible accelerated with OpenGL using your graphics-card instead of using your CPU.
In other words -> your CPU can concentrate on doing other things like running your applications.
don’t forget that if you disable all the fancy effects, an xgl desktop will be much faster than anything we currently have in linux. So even if you don’t like the effects, you still have the benefits of a perfectly fluid UI.
XGL will in fact allow you to run a fluid interface with less hardware, since graphic cards are so much more powerful than CPU for graphic related tasks.
XGL is a win/win for everybody.
now the next step is glitz, which accelerates cairo drawing inside windows.
Window/Microsoft has borrowed/copied/emulated more then any other system has. The history of X windows goes back to the sixties. I doubt Bill was programing in the cradle.
Do not take the last statement wronge. I am not anti microsoft or Bill Gates. I use windows(mostly to get the newest games with as few problems and delays as possible since most games are release for windows first). I use Linux and FreeBSD as well. I use the appropreat platform for whatever I am doing mostly at the moment.
What I am against is marketing. Most of what you are seeing on that web site seems like more of the same hoopla I have seen out of corperations for the last 20 years. Big build up and bigger let down on the product release.
If this is true it is the answer to the question of why. Performance improvement I can get behind. But I am betting that it will be one more layer of running program taking up CPU cycles and not giveing as much in return as we are lead to believe it will. If I am wronge I will be glad to add it to my systems. I just do not want to jump on a band wagon as I have so many times in the past only to find out the product does not live up to the hyp.
well, from my point of view the entire point to XGL is performance boosting, GL acceleration is very nice, I enjoy playing GL accelerated games on linux, because they are fast! IT only makes sense that making an accelerated version of X, is well gonna be, accelerated. Sure it might not work as well on older hardware, but whoopdy do da, For those of us with decent video cards, we can take full advantage of the speed increase, and if we want, we can put the stupid transperancy, and other stuff that generally slows down things, but just because you can make your desktop look like a pond doesnt mean you have do, on that note, that would be sweet, all your icons would be floating around, then when you clicked on them they bobbed down in the water… that would rock… And also if i’ve read correctly there wont be anything more running on an XGL server/client system than on a regular X server/client system. which means… well there’s nothing extra to bloat things up, this doesnt mean that the window managers you use arent gonna bloat themselves away into slowdom…
The one thing to remember about the current generation of video cards is they are 3d accelerators not 2d. Performance testing usually showes only marginal improvements in 2d environments and a desktop when all else is said and done is 2d.
looks cool.
hopefully my sound is working in linux by then, because i would love to switch to linux to use that.
screw going to WinVista
yeah, GL means 3d acceleration… thats the point, 2d functions are already fast enough, imo, its just sfx that really lag down on a 2d only system, 3d acceleration allows a lot more capabilities, like the sweet OSX style minimization animation, right now X would be really jerky doing that, just because its capabilities are limited. Smooth, fast animation are where GL shine, and thats what makes it exciting in inticing users from OSX, and Windows…
If you want a fast, non accelerated desktop, use blackbox/fluxbox, they run fast on my old 486, If you want KDE/Gnome to run faster, XGL is gonna make a difference because of the effects, and such that large systems have. Its simple really…
Actually, its already in the Ubuntu “dapper” (eg.dev) repositories (Yay!!!)
I’m going to try installing it tonight. That is, as soon as I can get Ubuntu to boot properly off of my usb hd… 
I may be wrong, but from my understanding, XGL is a library. As Centauri pointed out, it’s like enhancing X. All this argument about copying from OSX and whatever has no value on this level unless one is claiming that Novell is copying OSX’s GL enhanced X server idea or something. The window manager that uses this library to produce the effects is Compiz (I think). In other words, XGL could also be used to create a ton of other effects or usability enhancements that haven’t been thought of yet, but can apparently be used to replicate some that are seen in OSX’s current interface.
Check it out!!!
It actually works suprisingly well with blender, although the two do fight to get fullscreen a bit (lol)
I’m going to have a bit more of a play with it later, but as I am a linux noob it’s a little tough… that said, that means that anyone can install it 
BTW I have an Nvidia 6600LE and a AMD Sempron 2800+, and it seems pretty fast (faster than my win laptop… lol), though I havent tried any videos yet.
Later,
Lightning