See-Through Theme?

[djcaston]

I was wondering if anyone has a suggestion for a see through theme. Im looking for one where when windows are placed on top of the desktop, you can still partially see the desktop, like toying around with a transparency setting in GIMP or photoshop. Any suggestions?

[Hendrixski]

There is a way to do this with Beryl without a theme. Just set the opacity of your windows in the beryl manager.

You can also do this with the LG3D windows manager. download and install it with one simple package from lg3d.dev.java.net, all your out-of-focus windows are semi-transparent.

[djcaston]

how do i get beryl?

[loell]

you must have a decent graphics card ie(nvidia or ati) , search the forum for the specific card howto for beryl.

[Hendrixski]

how do i get beryl?

Oh man. If you are an experienced user then you can probably install Beryl, and troubleshoot it in a few minutes, if it's your first time then it may take a while.

First, make sure that you have the latest drivers for your graphics card. If you have an ATI card then I recomend this site. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI
__________________ If you have nVidia then there are plenty of other forums.

Then just go to Synaptic package manager and download/install Beryl-Manager, xgl-server and Emerald-theme-manager ... or something like that. make sure you have the right repositories. For more info go here. http://wiki.beryl-project.org/index.php/Install/Ubuntu


Have fun. :)

[Hendrixski]

oh, and if you are not sure if you want to try Beryl, then look at pictures of it in google images.

go to images.google.com and search for Beryl, or Compiz, or XGL, and you will see pictures that blow your mind. Then you can see videos of people doing crazy stuff with their computer on YouTube if you search for Beryl.

Also do a search for pictures and video of LG3D, also called Looking Glass. It's ... um mm, it's different.

[steveneddy]

I use Beryl from the SVN channels and it looks great.

Please visit before install:

http://wiki.beryl-project.org/index.php/Main_Page

and

http://forum.beryl-project.org/

Here you will find the community and most questions answered.

And yes, look on You Tube and Google Video for Beryl and the like to see what it looks like.

You MUST have an nVidia card or ATI and MUST be a minimum of 64 MB on the card to get acceptable beryl performance. Recommended system memory should be around 512 mb for optimal performance. System processor should be around a PIII 800 or so MINIMUM.

There are ways to get Beryl running of lesser spec systems but you must trim some of the "goodies" and make Beryl run without everything full on, just a little, maybe 1/3 or half throttle so you don't slow your system to a crash.

Good luck. You will have fun with this one.

[Sqwishy]

you must have a decent graphics card ie(nvidia or ati) , search the forum for the specific card howto for beryl. You don't need a good graphics card nececeraly, you need good drivers. Currently Nvidia is best supported. Although intel released their driver source code so eventually it might change.

I installed beryl in 30 min with no problems using edgy amd64 nvidia from PriceChild's beryl howto. (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=263851&highlight=beryl+howto)
btw, pricechild gave me a hug on irc! :D

[jem7v]

I got Compiz working on an old Geforce2 MX 400 with 32MB RAM, so unless Beryl is significantly heavier than it you should be able to survive it with an older card as long as the card is supported and you've got the right drivers.

[steveneddy]

I got Compiz working on an old Geforce2 MX 400 with 32MB RAM, so unless Beryl is significantly heavier than it you should be able to survive it with an older card as long as the card is supported and you've got the right drivers.

I agree that older, slower hardware will run Beryl/Compiz with success, but to get a good effect from the software, having a little faster processor, little better graphics card and more memory always helps. My nVidia card is PCI not AGP and still runs well, but not the best that it could. I'm ordering a new laptop from System76 in two weeks and I hope for much better performance with Beryl with the dedicated graphics channel.

Like most Linux users, install it play with it and have fun. I couldn't do without it now that I have it. If my five to six year old PIII system with PCI graphics cars and 512 mb RAM does well on Beryl then most PC's can do it.

:) 0 SE

[Sqwishy]

I installed beryl on a school computer with an really old agp card 733mhz and 256mb ram, and it's usable! some weird things don't work like the snow and stuff but it's smooth otherwise. I just had alot of trouble setting it up, because i had to install XGL instead of use the beta Nvidia drivers.