June 6, 2006 at 8:14 pm · Filed under General
After I got the Linux box all set, I tried out the Xgl / Compiz stuff to see what the desktop would look like. It takes a bunch of steps since this stuff is still too new for the Linux/X world, but I got it working.
What worked:
This isn’t Xgl related, but important. Gnome copies most of the Windows shortcuts. This is really nice. Gnome also has a lot of configurability. I’m pretty sure you can tweak and tweak forever with this window manager. The fonts might actually be anti-aliased.
The effects all worked and it is quite impressive. I even showed my kids and they were awed. There is something to be said for the ability to do something with computer visualization that just looks cool.
What didn’t work:
The ATI drivers have some issues. I turned on vsync to get rid of the tearing. No joy. 3. Do the Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to restart the X server
This just isn’t a priority for the Linux community at this time. You can bet your ass that stuff like that won’t be in Vista (and was never in Mac OS X)
I also got this error when trying to run my session from a clean boot.
compiz.real: Support for non power of two textures missing
compiz.real: Failed to manage screen: 0
compiz.real: No managable screens found on display :1.0
I could get around this with a painful set of steps.
1. Turn ‘dri’ back on in the Xorg.conf
2. Quit to GDM.
3. Do the Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to restart the X server
4. Start a non-Xgl session
5. Turn the ‘dri’ back off in the Xorg.conf
6. Quit to GDM
7. Do the Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to restart the X server
8. Start the Xgl session
Voila - the compiz works and the effects are all there 
I’ll have to make a script to do this
I suspect that the ‘dri’ gets the GPU into the right ’state’. Subsequent operations in Xgl then work well. In all fairness, this is all still considered BETA.
Hopefully this will help someone.
June 6, 2006 at 8:00 pm · Filed under General
Well, I succumbed to the lure and got another computer to tinker with. Did I need it? Nope
So, the computer was a Fry’s CPU / Motherboard combo. I always tell myself that I will never get these, but I always do. Anyways, it was the Pentium D 805 with an ECS RC410L/800M motherboard for $130. Wow. I mean you can’t even get the CPU for that much at Newegg (this is the one that overclocks to speeds faster than $1000 processors). I don’t know how Fry’s makes any money on these deals.
Anyways, I bought some memory and a new powersupply. Those set me back another $150. A video card wasn’t needed since it has an ATI x300 GPU on board, which is perfect for 99% of the stuff that I do. At this point in time, I need a very fast CPU and a decent GPU (good texturing and fll rate)
I took it all home, and put it together. The process was relatively painless. Only a few things have changed. I don’t have a newer case, but apparently cases these days don’t need to have a speaker and have all those little switches and led’s standardized to one single ribbon cable. They even have standardized headers for USB and audio since the newer cases bring those out to the front.
The next part was to get Linux going on this thing. I tried a few old hard drives that already had linux on them. They worked ok, but then one of the drives failed when I was going to install something on it. Luckily, I had a few more decent drives lying around.
After making things proper, it was time to install a Linux. Lots of people have been recommending Ubuntu, so I downloaded the ISO via uTorrent and gave it a try. Overall, it is probably the best Linux disto I’ve used. Everything was graphical and it just worked. Here is where they all fall apart. When something isn’t quite right, you have no idea how to fix it
Here is something interesting, though. The desktop is getting better. The keyboard shortcuts are all straight windows. I mean even Alt-Space works! The problem with it is the same one. It runs on X, which totally holds back any real good UI.
Conclusions:
Good, extremely cheap CPU for large computations
Linux is no desktop, but getting closer
