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aysiu
May 14th, 2007, 09:30 PM
I don't know if these are the same people--as I haven't done a comprehensive username comparison study--but it seems as if the Ubuntu community (or maybe the Linux community at large?) is sending mixed messages about Beryl/Compiz.

I've read quite often in discussions of how Ubuntu compares to Windows Vista or Mac OS X things like "Beryl looks way better than both of them" or in discussions of trying to "sell" Ubuntu to friends and famly members "Just show them this spinning cube..."

At the same time, when we get threads about people being disappointed in Ubuntu because of Beryl crashing their systems or causing some kind of problem, the responses inevitably include a tsk-tsk of the "Why are you using beta software like Beryl, then?" variety.

Can we have a consistent community stance on this? Is that possible? Either we recommend Beryl to people and support it... or we say "No, it's not ready for people to use."

What do people think?

forrestcupp
May 14th, 2007, 09:59 PM
But consistency takes away the right for people to have a choice. It's better to have choice, than to have consistency, standardization, and usablility.

Ender Black
May 14th, 2007, 10:07 PM
I think you are spot on. There does seem to be two camps. Eyecandy is what will get them to migrate lobby and the don't show them beta software lobby. Personally, I think we should be espousing the culture of privacy and choice for the consumer/user of FOSS to entice folks over from proprietary/invasive software.

But really, it seems awful shallow to switch your entire OS just to have the ability to have a rotating desktop.

What I love about FOSS is I have never had to give my private data unless I choose to. I have multiple choices for every application under the sun.

And compiz/beryl works 90% of the time. Not exactly my main selling point.

aidanr
May 14th, 2007, 10:11 PM
didn't work with automatix, people recommend it (me included) even though the "official" stance is it's bad

same with beryl, it's pretty simple, if you don't like it or have something against it, just ignore the support requests, other people will give support

FuturePilot
May 14th, 2007, 11:57 PM
Beryl has never really given me any problems, except on my laptop. But that's only because it's too old and has old hardware. So I don't use Beryl on my laptop anymore. But that's not going to turn me away from Linux. I'm still ecstatic over the fact that I have an OS that is completely free and is still able to do just about everything Windows can. You can still make Ubuntu or any distro look really nice without Beryl.

karellen
May 15th, 2007, 07:20 AM
But consistency takes away the right for people to have a choice. It's better to have choice, than to have consistency, standardization, and usablility.

in my opinion the majority of people don't care about choices as they care about standardization and usability.

FurryNemesis
May 15th, 2007, 08:08 AM
Every time someone's asked me about Beryl I've stressed it's beta software. I've had a couple of problems with it which tbh were soley of my own own doing (forgetting to enable compositing, trying to get effects running without getting the drivers first) and have had to say that it might not be that easy to set up. It doesn't seem to deter them once they realise that they don't HAVE to have it - it's there if they want it.

jiminycricket
May 15th, 2007, 08:08 AM
Is it proprietary drivers or the software itself that causes most complaints?

prizrak
May 15th, 2007, 02:09 PM
Is it proprietary drivers or the software itself that causes most complaints?

It's both. Advertising Compiz/Beryl is the wrong thing to do right now IMO. Someone may see my set up and go "sweet those are some awesome effects". Then they want to try it out but they happen to have an ATI card. Beryl/Compiz blows up they come to me and I have to tell them "well yeah it won't work with ATI unless you do <insert a convoluted explanation of the XGL setup process> but it's a beta so that may crash on you too". So the guy walks away feeling like he was tricked and with prejudice against Linux.

Note: Completely hypothetical situation.

starcraft.man
May 15th, 2007, 02:27 PM
Hmmm, I'm not sure about this... I use beryl all the time (90% i turn it off when I game or when I leave my computer on for days without supervision). I don't think I try to actively promote it as a "must" have, I mean it isn't necessary to use Ubuntu, and the default metacity manager is good enough for a lot of people I think. That said, Beryl is nice and it has a few features I find useful for when I'm working around with lots of windows (for instance, I really like being able to just drag windows or change windows just by moving mouse to edge of screen).

I definitely think Beryl is much more stable than recommending any of the dock programs (can't vouch for compiz, I had trouble with it last time...). So I guess what I'm saying is, we shouldn't probably be going "Come to Ubuntu, we got Beryl." but if they ask how to set it up, I don't see why we shouldn't show them how to do it and support them.

Oh and a note on your example Prizrak, in my experience... people who walk away after going straight for Beryl and having trouble, weren't really looking to switch but were looking for it to fail so they could go back to windows/mac and say they tried...

maniacmusician
May 15th, 2007, 02:35 PM
I just tell people about Beryl and show it off to them, but at the same time, I do say that it's beta software and that it will still have kinks and it can potentially not work at all on a lot of systems.

forrestcupp
May 15th, 2007, 02:52 PM
I think I've figured something out. The only time I have any problems with Beryl or Compiz is when I'm playing an opengl game (B & C cause exactly the same problem here). Usually a full screen game will become windowed and unresponsive, then eventually become full screen and responsive again. I think I finally figured out that it is messing up when the screen saver kicks in. Is there any way for the screen saver to automatically shut off when a full screen program takes over? If so, that would take care of all of the instability that I experience.

I have a 3 year old boy that plays games on his own, so I can't really expect him to turn off the screen saver or Compiz before he starts a game up.

Anthem
May 15th, 2007, 03:42 PM
Shouldn't be a problem for much longer.

earobinson
May 15th, 2007, 03:48 PM
personally the cube is the only part of beryl I like. While I would never tisk tisk some one if they used beryl and it crashed there computer I understand that it is beta sw in the true sense of the word (not like gmail) and It will crash more computers than non beta.

But in general any sw open source closed source windows mac or linux is going to crash some computers. We just need to do our best to help them fix it. And if uninstalling beryl is the solution then so be it.

prizrak
May 15th, 2007, 03:56 PM
Oh and a note on your example Prizrak, in my experience... people who walk away after going straight for Beryl and having trouble, weren't really looking to switch but were looking for it to fail so they could go back to windows/mac and say they tried...
I don't know if it's true. I have tried to go to Linux many times before I finally landed on Ubuntu. I ended up switching back because it wouldn't rise to my expectations. The most evident was Gentoo for me, everyone said how great it was, took me 3 days to compile and I couldn't even get X to start. People are generally willing to put effort into something they want/like so if they want. If it happens to be desktop effects that only works on a limited number of hardware they don't have they will not be willing to put effort into it anymore. It's a first impressions kind of issue. It's like advertising something for 50% off and then learning you have to show up at 5am in all black with a torch while jumping through a mine field to get it and then it ends up being a mail in rebate.

macogw
May 16th, 2007, 01:13 AM
I don't have any problems with Beryl except that whole two-people-using-it-at-once thing...which isn't an issue as I'm the only user of my computer, though it is an issue on my mom's. I use it all the time, and it's fun to show off, but if anyone wants to try it I do point out "you can't have 2 people who are logged on both use it, and it might be kinda hard to make work right depending on your graphics card. I'm lucky because Intel's are easy, but it's still not really done so sometimes Beryl will crash. Your whole computer won't though. It'll just lose the wobbly windows and go back to normal until you turn Beryl back on"

Ireclan
May 16th, 2007, 03:28 AM
You will never have a consistent view on what to use to promote Linux. EVER. The culture just doesn't support it, because it's all about freedom and choice, which naturally causes division. Now, this doesn't mean that there can't be an "official stance" that the leading proponents take. If THAT'S what you're calling for, then by all means, knock yourself out. Depending on which stance you take regarding Beryl, I may even support you. I myself happen to think that Beryl is too unstable to be used right now in the service of promoting Linux without at least a note of caution regarding it.

Lucifiel
May 16th, 2007, 03:52 AM
Hmmm... I think Beryl either works well or it doesn't. There're stories of happy people who managed to get it to run on their Ati/Nvidia cards. There're also stories of how Beryl refused to work and also inflicted damage on Ubuntu, even after it was uninstalled.

That said, I'd like to wait a few more months before I recommend Beryl to anyone. It's a bit unstable right now and can really mess with Ubuntu, if you're not careful.

kragen
May 16th, 2007, 04:25 AM
Shouldn't be a problem for much longer.

How come? Do you know something that I don't? :)

hanzomon4
May 16th, 2007, 04:41 AM
I use beryl all the time and my hardware is less then spectacular. The wall plugin, tab+grouper, scale, and ring are things I rely on to a point. It's fun to use and people generally like it, but beginners often blame beryl/compiz for messing up things that beryl/compiz have nothing to do with. I believe that as the software stabilizes and becomes more main-stream these problems will be less and less of a "problem". Until then it will remain much to esoteric for some

userundefine
May 16th, 2007, 04:49 AM
Personally I don't use Beryl anymore because it had become too slow for me and the responsiveness suffered. This was some problem between versions, because earlier on when they split from Compiz the builds were snappy. The other and equally important reason is that I do not like it as a window manager. Kwin is very good IMO and I like its features. In Gnome, it was an improvement over metacity, but Kwin is by far superior. I heard one of the KDE devs talking about potentially integrating the Compiz/beryl features into Kwin itself but not replacing Kwin, and that's what I'd be for because KDE is very snappy. I think that was Zack Rustin on the Linux Link Tech Show who said that. Anyway, Kwin is perfect for me.

yatt
May 16th, 2007, 06:50 AM
Personally I don't use Beryl anymore because it had become too slow for me and the responsiveness suffered. This was some problem between versions, because earlier on when they split from Compiz the builds were snappy. The other and equally important reason is that I do not like it as a window manager. Kwin is very good IMO and I like its features. In Gnome, it was an improvement over metacity, but Kwin is by far superior. I heard one of the KDE devs talking about potentially integrating the Compiz/beryl features into Kwin itself but not replacing Kwin, and that's what I'd be for because KDE is very snappy. I think that was Zack Rustin on the Linux Link Tech Show who said that. Anyway, Kwin is perfect for me.
I've heard those plans have been abandoned for anytime in the immediate future.

prizrak
May 16th, 2007, 02:18 PM
Personally I don't use Beryl anymore because it had become too slow for me and the responsiveness suffered. This was some problem between versions, because earlier on when they split from Compiz the builds were snappy. The other and equally important reason is that I do not like it as a window manager. Kwin is very good IMO and I like its features. In Gnome, it was an improvement over metacity, but Kwin is by far superior. I heard one of the KDE devs talking about potentially integrating the Compiz/beryl features into Kwin itself but not replacing Kwin, and that's what I'd be for because KDE is very snappy. I think that was Zack Rustin on the Linux Link Tech Show who said that. Anyway, Kwin is perfect for me.
I heard the same thing about Metacity and still nothing.

Beryl/Compiz shouldn't be promoted as a the killer feature that it is. People like to call it Vista without the price tag but in reality Beryl/Compiz will only work in some pretty specific hardware environments same as Vista. It may not need nearly as much power but it still requires specific hardware. I would suggest staying away from using B/C as a selling point until it can be reliably used on any card with enough power. Basically until the AMD open drivers make it into the main tree and are stable enough.

hanzomon4
May 16th, 2007, 02:31 PM
Yeah I agree to a point. You don't need vista specs though, thats not even a good comparison. At the moment if you have an Nvidia or Intel graphics, basically something that can use AIGLX, you'll be fine. I bought my computer 3/4 years ago and I can play games and do everything without suffering slowdown. But I agree not having support for ATI... I mean ATI not supporting Linux users can cause problems that confuse beginners, and "buy Nvidia" ain't advice for those that already own a good ATI card.

b0ng0
May 16th, 2007, 02:36 PM
It's a shame it doesn't work for everyone but I would say it adds so much to the linux experience (visually) that if your computer can run it then you should (if you like nice visuals). Not that ubuntu needs beryl to look good but compared to the other brand-new OS's available at the moment, Beryl brings Ubuntu up to the same level visually.