2/16/2006

Xgl

Cardoe wrote this around lunchtime:

So just before yesterday’s GatorLUG meeting I installed Hanno’s Xgl overlay and got Xgl up and running on my ATI Radeon Mobility 9000. It’s a r200 based card, specifically a R250Lf chip. Hanno’s instructions are for a windowed X server on top of your current X session, this didn’t work for me. So I followed Sebastian’s instructions but those weren’t without their oddities. Basically I messed up at first and didn’t realize that I had to restart my X session… I know… duh! But I wasn’t thinking, just rushing. The other HUGELY important issue is to make sure you run glxinfo first, which is provided by x11-apps/mesa-progs and make sure you have “direct rendering: yes” in the output, otherwise X will just crash on you. Well, here’s the steps to make it happen.

  1. cd /usr/local
  2. svn co http://svn.hboeck.de/xgl-overlay
  3. add “/usr/local/xgl-overlay” to PORTDIR_OVERLAY
  4. emerge -auDv world

    # This will update mesa, cairo, and glitz.

  5. emerge xgl compiz

    # This will install the OpenGL X server and the composition manager as well as Gnome Decorator

  6. cd /usr/bin && rm X && ln -s Xgl X

    # This changes the X symlink to point to Xgl rather then Xorg. To switch back point it back to Xorg

  7. Log Out
  8. Log In
  9. If you’re using binary drivers (nvidia and fglrx) prepend the following command with LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/opengl/xorg-x11/lib/
  10. compiz --replace gconf decoration wobbly fade minimize cube rotate zoom scale move resize place switcher &
  11. gnome-window-decorator &
  12. And you’re all set. You should see some pretty neat effects.

Some things to keep in mind.

  • This won’t work on KDE just yet because of the lack of kde-window-decorator. It’s being worked on but it’s not ready yet.
  • It’s highly experimental code, it probably won’t work.
  • In fact, binary ATI drivers are known not to work and open source nvidia drivers are known not to work. Only ones that do work are binary Nvidia and open source ATI and only with certain cards.
  • Performance is pretty poor right now
  • Anti-Aliased console fonts are busted (aka gnome-terminal)

Reason I provided instructions is that Sebastian’s instructions didn’t work for me too well. You’ll notice my compiz call is slightly different then his. With his when I clicked on the title bars I’d get compiz crashing and it’s say WNCK_IS_DESKTOP or something like that failed. I didn’t pay enough attention to it at the time.

oh and just so everyone knows THIS IS NOT SUPPORTED BY ANYONE!!! IF IT BREAKS YOUR SYSTEM!! IT’S YOUR OWN FAULT!! Do not rant in #gentoo or on bugzilla about this not working!!

* Filed under: General, Linux, Modular X

3 Responses to “Xgl”

  1. lotso Says:
    February 16th, 2006 at 9:16 pm

    Hmm… your Graphic card is the same as mine. (Dell D600) But as you say, performance is poor, i rather not venture there then.

    Thanks for the heads up

  2. Stefan Kost Says:
    February 17th, 2006 at 9:04 am

    doing ‘emerge xgl compiz’ failed due to
    ‘media-libs/mesa-6.4.3_alpha20060216′ beeing masked
    I’ve unmasked it in ‘/etc/portage/package.unmask’, but then the story continues with ‘x11-libs/libX11′ beeing masked. Putting that into package.unmask too reveals just more masked packages.
    Any idea?

  3. Cardoe Says:
    February 17th, 2006 at 11:47 am

    This is based off of modular X, if you’re not running modular X… This won’t work at all.

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