What operating system is this that I am thinking of

[JoeFahey]

I have seen an OS that has the desktop as a cube that you can rotae around for different desktops. Is it a form of linux? How can I get it?

 

[Missing Ghost]

I know that there is something in linux that can do this. But I know for sure that macOSX does this.
The thing in linux is called "Xgl" if I remember correctly.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Click here for information regarding XGL.

If you want an easy way to experience XGL, it doesn't get simpler than running the Kororaa XGL LiveCD. Unfortunately there was a huge debate on whether Kororaa could distribute proprietary nvidia/ati drivers which led to the respectful removal of their distribution from their site. They're going to start working on it again, but will only contain gpl'd drivers. However, I'd recommend you use their old 0.2 release that's still circulating around through mirrors and torrents.

If you want to use XGL and prefer to have a linux distro installed to your hard drive I'd recommend a version of Suse as a first choice. Its definantly the easiest distro to setup XGL in my opinion. Once you're running drivers with 3d acceleration you just have to click a button to enable the 3d effects. I'd secondly recommend Ubuntu. With Automatix Bleeder its just as easy as Suse.

 

[chcarnage]

You may think of the Fast User Switching rotation effect that Apple introduced with OS X 10.3 and which can be seen in Apple's presentation program Keynote, too.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/overview/aquauserinterface.html

 

[vatanner]

I think you are thinking of NLD10. That is Novell Suse Linux 10. It has a cube that you spin to get to different desktops, it is shaped like a cube but really has up to 100 sides. If you go here and scroll down you can see the screenshots.
http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/screenshots.html

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX
Click here for information regarding XGL.

If you want an easy way to experience XGL, it doesn't get simpler than running the Kororaa XGL LiveCD. Unfortunately there was a huge debate on whether Kororaa could distribute proprietary nvidia/ati drivers which led to the respectful removal of their distribution from their site. They're going to start working on it again, but will only contain gpl'd drivers. However, I'd recommend you use their old 0.2 release that's still circulating around through mirrors and torrents.

If you want to use XGL and prefer to have a linux distro installed to your hard drive I'd recommend a version of Suse as a first choice. Its definantly the easiest distro to setup XGL in my opinion. Once you're running drivers with 3d acceleration you just have to click a button to enable the 3d effects. I'd secondly recommend Ubuntu. With Automatix Bleeder its just as easy as Suse.

A program called Compiz is also involved somehow. I can't get specific though, cuz I don't really follow "eye-candy" trends. I think though, if you pretty much google around for a distro name, xgl, and compiz, then you can find info on installing it. Except on Fedora, I hear the thing to use is called AIGLX (sp?).

But as was said, download and boot into the Kororaa LiveCD. I tried it. It worked. It was neat. There are a lot more cool effects besides the spinning cube. Really, everyone I showed the Kororaa LiveCD to was amazed.

 

[Brazen]

my bad

 

[drag]

For the 3d eye candy for Linux you need to have:

Compiz + AIGLX (currently requires open source DRI drivers, eventually propriatory drivers will catch up. AIGLX is aviable in X.org 7.1)
or...

Compiz + XGLX (Novel calls it XGL. Works with propriatory drivers, but requires extra setup.)
or...

Gnome 2.16's Metacity + Compiz
or..

Gnome 2.16's Metacity + AIGLX
but..
Metacity supports composition features (required for the eye candy) but it requires a special configuration option at compile time which is not used by default.


AIGLX is aviable if your running X.org version 7.1 or greater, it's built right into the X server. XGLX runs as a full screen application on top of your regular X server.

No 'mainstream' Linux systems do this stuff by default yet though. Dependancy on propriatory drivers is kinda holding things back since otherwise AIGLX is pretty stable and is aviable by default on newer stuff. XGL will work with propriatory drivers.

Some are a bit easier to setup by default. With newer versions of OpenSuse, Fedora Core, and Ubuntu have lots of guides and pre-compiled applications and such aviable for getting this stuff running.

Videos and more information is aviable at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xgl
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIGLX

The other OS that can do these special effects is also OS X and it's Quartz Extreme interface. It does it by default and out of the box and has done so for quite some time.


Vista may end up doing stuff like that also.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: drag

As always, a thorough post by dag . Any word on which is "better", AIGLX or XGL(X)?

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: drag

As always, a thorough post by dag . Any word on which is "better", AIGLX or XGL(X)?

AIGLX because it works with my video card.

It realy depends. Both are aiming to do the exact same thing and they share code and both contribute to XGL (the core opengl framework for X.org's X server which is why it gets confusing to call xglx xgl depending on the context of the discussion).

AIGLX will work with latest drivers from DRI. Good open source drivers are aviable ATI r200 cards, ATI r300 and r400 cards (with some caveats), and Intel embedded graphics.

For the ATI there are problems with 'hypermemory' cards, with x200 embedded cards (due to shared memory sceme they can't figure out how to work) and there are mysterious lock-ups with some 9800 cards. Otherwise any ATI card that IS NOT a X1000 or higher numbered cards should work with open source drivers.

For Intel you probably want a i915g or i945g chipset. Those are the GMA 900 video chip and GMA 950 chip respectively. These provide the performance nessicary to run a OpenGL desktop comfortably and are well supported. For 965 series Intel chipsets there is a new GMA X3000 chip that are designed to be comparable to low/mid range discrete video cards, obviously in response to the (much higher then Linux's XGL stuff) graphical requirements of Vista.

If you have those you may have to use CVS drivers from Mesa/Libdrm/kernel drm drivers for good stability, but otherwise those things should run AIGLX out-of-the-box on X.org 7.1 stuff.

To find out if you have AIGLX enabled just go:
cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log|grep -i aiglx

When I upgraded my X.org install for Debian Unstable to my suprise aiglx was 'just working'. Now gettting Compiz to work is entirely different problem...

If you have a video card that requires propriatory drivers then you probably want to take a look at XGL(x) since that sets up a X Server that doesn't require any driver changes.


As for performance or features I don't know which is better. I am thinking that Compiz may work out better with XGL, but I don't know that for sure. Probably when Nvidia and ATI release their next set of propriatory drivers they will support AIGLX's changes (if they haven't already, I am not sure the current status)


--------

As the things involve both AIGLX and XGLX will end up being replaced by a fully OpenGL X Server. Currently both require legacy X Server with the old XAA/EXA 2D driver model so it makes things more complex then they need to be. They are more of a development or transitional X stuff between legacy xfree xserver and future fully-opengl driven x servers. There purpose is to attract developers, provide a interm opengl interface for compition with Vista and OS X and as their development progresses they contribute code and solutions back into X.org proper.

For a real fully independant OpenGL X Server, howerver, it requires extra extensions to OpenGL unfortunately...

OpenGL is designed as a application API, not a Windowing API. There are features that OpenGL lacks such the ability to manage displays and display resolutions. However a company called Kronos developed OpenGL-ES. OpenGL-ES is a stripped down OpenGL implimentation designed to provide a opengl environment for embedded systems.. as part of OpenGL-ES they had to figure out how to extend it to managing displays, these extensions can work with a full OpenGL implimentation. Currently these changes or extensions are called OpenGL-EGL. So even though it came from am stripped down thing for embedded devices it will work fine with a fully functional OpenGL implimentation like what Linux distros can provide with Mesa and dri drivers.

Recently OpenGL ARB (a consortium of 3DLabs, Apple, ATI, Dell, IBM, Intel, Nvidia, SGI, and Sun Microsystems) has turned over control of the OpenGL specifications to Kronos, so things are looking up for those extensions to make it into OpenGL proper. One of the critisms of OpenGL is their slow adoption of new features unlike DirectX/Direct3d, one of the hopes of giving Kronos control is that they can move faster then the ARB does.

There is currently a stand alone 'true' fully opengl X server right now called Xegl which takes advantage of these extension called Xegl that has been in development for a while now. The idea being that Xegl will eventually replace the current X.org (xfree) X server.

That goes into the reason why XGLX is called XGLX and not just XGL. This is because X.org already has a DDX called XGL. DDX is hardware-dependant portion of the X Server. (DDX stands roughly for Device Dependant X) There are xfree style DDX (which is the traditional 2d-only X stuff we all currently use), there is a Darwin DDX for OS X. There is a DDX for Windows and Xnest is also a DDX. The XGL DDX is used in XGLX an Xegl and I think AIGLX. (this contrasts to hardware independant DIX (Device Independant X) which is common to all X.org-originated X servers)