LWN: Comments on "Debates on the future of Compiz"

Debates on the future of Compiz

bronson — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 19:48:21 +0000

I guess I'm falling behind the times. While the latest Ubuntu still does the rubber band effect (!), Fedora 10 appears to do a proper resize. Excellent! It appears that this will not be a problem for much longer.

Debates on the future of Compiz

Luyseyal — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:23:11 +0000

What this project needs is a big ass kicking by Keith Packard. :)

WM vs. Library

Tet — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 15:50:56 +0000

And, in this age of desktop environments, how valuable is the WM paradigm, anyways?

For me, it's essential. Whether people realise it or not, they're still using a window manager, even if they're using GNOME or KDE. And having a capable window manager makes the user much more productive. Perhaps that's why I'm one of those remaining FVWM users you mentioned...

WM vs. Library

kirkengaard — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 15:24:50 +0000

And, in this age of desktop environments, how valuable is the WM paradigm, anyways? I realize that Gnome uses several as options, but even they have trimmed down (consistent with their philosophy). A decade ago, when even KDE was still a desktop environment that used window managers, compiz made sense, but it's increasingly a bolt-on in a built-in world. Making it a library might see its demise come sooner, but it also stands a chance of bringing the benefit compiz actually has to all sorts of desktop environments through compiled-in support for 3d effects in the DE itself.

Except for the fact that KDE has gone the built-in-effects-library route for themselves, in a big and usable KDE-internal way, and lobbying freedesktop.org to make it a standard library will just make it a Gnome compile necessity, something Gnome is just *begging* for more of.

(Cue flames from the remaining FVWM users out there... :) )

The free software ecosystem is like any other evolutionary environment, in that it pursues all branches into all niches, and lets the environmental and competitive constraints do the pruning. We've seen it before, and we'll see it again. A project's value proposition is a description of the niche value, not the value of the specific code that occupies it. Competition is for niche occupancy, and maybe the niche is taken, in which case the survival option is to evolve to a niche that is more available.

Debates on the future of Compiz

lonely_bear — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 05:59:17 +0000

I have the same feeling. Most of the "cool" features are just a waste of computing resources and decrease productivity.

WM vs. Library

Tet — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:20:14 +0000

Hmmm. I was just about to post about my lack of understanding of the need for Compiz, when what we really need is libcomposite.so and for other window managers to make use of it. But I see you've already done that for me :-) It's been a long time annoyance for me.

Debates on the future of Compiz

daenzer — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:55:10 +0000

> It's hilarious that Compiz still doesn't know how to resize windows.
> Didn't dragging the outline of a window go away in the mid-90s. (yes, I
> know that there are esoteric ways of fixing this on some machines but
> enabled by default)

Can you elaborate? If you're referring to the old-school rubberband effect, that certainly isn't the only option, and I don't think it was enabled by default for me either. Maybe you're actually seeing a distribution default configuration issue?

FWIW I'm enjoying smooth and quite snappy opaque window resizing with compiz.

Debates on the future of Compiz

daenzer — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:50:27 +0000

DRI2 is not a requirement for properly integrating XVideo with a compositing manager. The driver just needs to provide a textured XVideo adaptor for that (and the video player application needs to use that, obviously :).

DRI2 is indeed a requirement for properly integrating accelerated client OpenGL rendering output with a compositing manager though.

WM vs. Library

mrfredsmoothie — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:23:40 +0000

I've never understood why people were working on a "compositing window manager" vs. a compositing library which could be used by any window manager.

I like eye candy, but not enough to make it be the primary criteria by which I select a window manager.

Debates on the future of Compiz

me@jasonclinton.com — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:27:42 +0000

No, DRI2 solves this problem which is not the same as the 2.5 branch. You need Mesa 7.2, Xorg 1.6.99.x and a suitable DRI2-capable video driver. Incidentally, it also fixes video and OpenGL app. rendering on Metacity Xrender and Mutter and KWin4.

With DRI2, rendering contexts just work the way you'd expect.

Debates on the future of Compiz

marduk — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:23:01 +0000

I think Compiz has reached a state where it has accomplished the needs of the everyday user. I don't think most users are interested in most of the eye-candy stuff that Compiz delivers. They make great Youtube videos but are mostly impractical. I use compiz, but with a minimal setup. I do use translucent borders, drop shadows and a few of the animations (mostly just fade). I'm a GNOME user and I have to admit the main reason I don't use Metacity is because I want new windows to appear in the center of the screen (not the top left corner) and there is no option to do that with Metacity. If/when Metacity chooses to implement that option then I would consider switching to metacity with compositing enabled. Until then Compiz with minimal effects works just nicely.

Debates on the future of Compiz

jpetso — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:08:13 +0000

Er, wow. I always have known that I personally will prefer KWin over Compiz
anytime, but I had no idea that Compiz faces such a desperate situation.
LWN coverage ftw!

Debates on the future of Compiz

njs — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:45:03 +0000

> things like zooming windows are absolute requirements

Unfortunately, real zooming windows as seen in the iPhone aren't hung up on details of Compiz development or GPU drivers, but something worse: an annoying low-level limitation of X's architecture. To get real zooming, you need to munge windows on their way to the display -- that's easy, we have it -- and you also need to munge mouse events on their way back to the window (to rescale the coordinates). This is a big mess, because of the interaction between the compositing manager (who knows how the X events should be munged) and X grabs (which can lock out clients, including the compositing manager, during input handling). Last I checked the X folks have given up on dealing with this for now...

Debates on the future of Compiz

aleXXX — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:32:11 +0000

"this code is still being actively worked on and maintained."

The "still" is not necessary in this sentence :-)
I installed OpenSUSE 11.1 with KDE 4.1 on my notebook and everything just
worked out of the box, including all the 3D effects, completely
integrated with the DE. The effect are not only the desktop cube, but
also translucent windows, e.g. a translucent panel, which does make
sense, grayed out windows if a modal dialog is open (very useful),
overview over all desktops and more.

Alex

Debates on the future of Compiz

tajyrink — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 07:36:10 +0000

The video playback problem is one clear thing that is not a problem of compiz, but the video drivers. For intel, all the quirks of it should be fixed with 2.5 series of drivers, ie. Fedora 10 should work unless they have forced Xv overlay output. For ATI with open drivers it should work. ATI closed source drivers are broken (or at least have been), again a driver problem.

Debates on the future of Compiz

bronson — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 05:36:30 +0000

It's hilarious that Compiz still doesn't know how to resize windows. Didn't dragging the outline of a window go away in the mid-90s. (yes, I know that there are esoteric ways of fixing this on some machines but enabled by default)

It also consistently fouls up video playback, even on Intrepid and Fedora 10.

I guess the one good thing about Compiz is how easy it is to turn off.

Debates on the future of Compiz

pynm0001 — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 03:28:13 +0000

KDE 4's KWin has integrated many of the features from Compiz, and this code
is still being actively worked on and maintained.

http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/KWin/4.0-release-notes#W...

Debates on the future of Compiz

filteredperception — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 03:02:53 +0000

I'm the quintessential example of someone who just doesn't care about 3D desktop effects. I've even spent two and a half years working for a GPU startup 10 years ago, and I totally agree with the premise that the GPU should be running the desktop. But until it's 100% rock solid, I truly don't care. I'm here with my 7 virtual desktops hotkey switched with ctrl+up and cntrl+down, and can't imagine why anyone would seriously prefer the added animation delay of watching a cube rotate. Of course, that is just me the esoteric linux using engineer.

I just checked wikipedia which answered my confusion reading the article. I.e. that beryl was part of the merge, and that there doesn't appear to be an alternative... except android. It seems like it will take an OS that needs to fit on a cell phone, to truly dictate that things like zooming windows are absolute requirements. So I think once we see the same OS being used on our cell phones as our workstations, is the day when the motivation will be in place to have a rock solid 3D desktop implementation.

$0.02...