Xgl and OpenGL support

Do you want Xgl/OpenGL support for Fvwm?

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

Take a look at this if you haven’t seen what Xgl and compiz can do yet:

http://www.freedesktop.org/~davidr/xgl-demo1.xvid.avi

This is all done with OpenGL, Xgl is a new server providing support for it and compiz is a WM taking advantage of it. It would be amazing if Fvwm could do the same.

Thanks for taking your time to vote yes. :wink:

Yes yes yes! I was amazed when I saw the compiz video… It would be awesome to have FVWM compatibility.

Admittedly, that video is amazing. However, I don’t think FVWM should go that far with Xgl. I would like to see compositing built in, so we can have hardware acceleration. I think transparency and the thumbnail winlist are genuinely useful and should be implemented.

I’ve shown Xgl/Compiz to a lot of my friends now and they are all amazed and impressed. I’m really looking forward to what might happen in the near future of Linux GUI’s. This would certainly beat anything Microsoft implements in Windows Vista.

There’s a lot that a 3D desktop can do that it shouldn’t - just look at some aspects of Vista’s desktop :slight_smile:

But things like the pager & task list showing perfect miniature views of the actual window, true transparency, accurate drop shadows et al would be a very useful addition to any desktop.

Maybe the next major release of FVWM would be FVWM3D? :slight_smile:

Mind you, I think that just making 2D windows look a bit more 3D isn’t making the best use of the possibilities - I reckon the future interface won’t have windows at all, all the individual items that live in individual windows will be freely moveable between apps.

e.g. when you have an IM conversation with a friend in another country who’s got a blog, you’ll have an IM text box, plus the blog’s RSS feed, a clock showing what time it is for him, and maybe his current weather as well, all in one place instead of in multiple independant windows.

But that’s just an opinion, of course :wink:

Well, the boost in responsiveness or available CPU power that would result in the GPU taking over the 2D drawing of the desktop in it’s own right is already a good reason to at least make it an option to use this.

If people want to create all sorts of cool effects with this I’m quite okay with that as long as it’s not forced down my throat (as it will probably be with Windows Vista)…

It’s not just about eye candy.
Go read this

I know, as I said this would greatly reduce the strain on the CPU.

Rather than watching it in a dull video, I suggest you download an XGL LiveCD (442MB, available off BitTorrent) & have a play yourself!

If you’ve got any kind of 3D acceleration, you should be able to use it - it worked perfectly with my MX440. True transparency, drop-shadows, ‘live’ miniaturization icons - the whole nine yards!

XGL, definetly yes, but I wonder what is needed in fvwm to use it. Isn’t it just the X server that uses it. I tried the livecd, and it is amazing how fast all these effects work. I’m looking forward to see when these are starting to be a thing that is installed by default and not just by some techies.

Johan

I tried the LiveCD too (currently writing from it), and I have to say it’s really good! Some effects are probably just playing around, but some may be really useful.

I would vote for Xgl support in FVWM too.

some things are indead for playing with it, but with a little more programming, even these things can become really usefull. for example the thing when u press F12. Now it is just for selecting a window, but when you make it something like in OS X, when you drag a file from 1 window, move it to a ‘magic corner’ => window selection apears => drag the file to 1 of the presented windows.
I think this should be possible now with a little programming, and something like this may seem ‘playing with effects’, but that’s a usefull thing.

Just my opinion

if i try Xgl on my Gentoo… what can i do now? nothing? is it usefull only with gnome or kde at the time?

Here’s what you can do:

edulinux.homeunix.org/fvwm/fvwmchanfaq.html#22

– Thomas Adam

so the only way is to use fvwm as the window manager of gnome or kde… simply useless
even more, i have no time to spend upgrading Xorg to version 7 and installing all the other packages… i’m working to my first public config :wink:

I’d prefer aiglx since that acctually WORKS with the Free drivers.

I simple 3d tasks in FVWM would be great, anything to help the desktop feel more alive would be alright. I mainly want to see the alt tab brought in and the expose type feature, and transparency would be nice as well.

I use FVWM cause I can make windows do what I want. If I could Scale, AnimatedMove (with more eye candy than currently) and have true transparency I would be in heaven. With new commands to take advantage of composite features I could create my dream desktop easily.

Metisse is getting close and works great if you use their config, but the commands are a bit too buggy to use them yourself without lots of weird side effects. Plus making your own config atm is very undocumented so it’s a bit hard. I would much rather have a solution that uses AIGLX (since it’s in the newest xorg and included in most distributions already).

I would love to look into this but sadly the documentation on AIGLX and using is a bit light as well, so me being a novice system’s programmer I have NO idea on even where to begin. I will definitely follow development though, it’s something I have a high interest in learning about.