Wayland Archive

X.Org 7.3 Preview

Submitted by Michael 2007-08-30 Wayland 40 Comments

"Scheduled for release tomorrow is X.Org 7.3. Among the new features for X.Org 7.3 include the Xorg server 1.4, an application for adjusting a display's backlight, updated display drivers, and support for font catalog directories. Version 1.4 of the X.Org server contains such features as RandR 1.2 support, input hot-plugging, KDrive enhancements, Solaris DTrace support, and EXA improvements. In this article today, we will briefly go over some of the changes found in X.Org 7.3 and we will follow up with some benchmarks in early September."

Compiz Fusion 0.5.2 Released

Submitted by anonymous 2007-08-13 Wayland 25 Comments

"This is the first development release of Compiz Fusion, the result of more than six months of work and polish. Compiz Fusion is the result of a merge between the Compiz community plugin set 'Compiz Extras' and the parts of the Beryl project that are independent of the window manager core. The two communities have re-united to create a user experience for Linux that rivals anything available on other platforms."

Multi-Touch Support for MPX

Submitted by archiesteel 2007-07-14 Wayland 15 Comments

Peter Hutterer, the man behind the multiple pointer X server, has released an update to MPX server, adding support for multitouch displays. "MPX already supported multiple input devices. Which blows pretty much all assumptions in user interfaces (input) out of the water. Now I've gone one step further and added support for multi-touch displays."

Introducing Compiz Fusion

Submitted by kenden 2007-06-21 Wayland 39 Comments

The merger between compiz and Beryl now has a name: Compiz Fusion. "Our previous attempts to select a project name have not gone well. We tried a poll but the names in the poll were not pre-qualified to determine if they were usable and the 'winning' name was also a strongly disliked name. Kristian and I each proposed a plan to select a name, but that effort got sidetracked by a massive flame war on the mailing list. While our community has some democratic features, ultimately it is a meritocracy and the people who contribute the most value have the most say. So in the end a decision was made by the majority of the people who have contributed the most."

Cairo v1.4.6; Ardour 2.0 Released

Eugenia Loli 2007-05-02 Wayland 16 Comments

Cairo v1.4.6 is released and it's got a "particularly juicy performance fix, (working around an X server performance bug), as well as native PDF gradients with alpha". In other interesting open source releases, the powerful audio application Ardour v2.0 was released (with Mac OS X support).

Beryl, Compiz Communities Reunite

Submitted by SEJeff 2007-04-06 Wayland 42 Comments

"After several weeks of discussion the leaders of Compiz and Beryl have agreed that the two communities shall reunite. This decision is supported by both David and Quinn and represents the majority decision of the administrators and developers in each community."

Compiz, Beryl Teams Consider Merging

Submitted by irbis 2007-03-24 Wayland 64 Comments

"The Compiz and Beryl teams are discussing a merger. Posts on the Compiz forum and Beryl mailing list indicate that the projects are discussing how to execute a merger and work together to deliver a single compositing window manager to give 'bling' to the Linux desktop."

Creating a Sane Beryl Settings Manager

Eugenia Loli 2007-03-20 Wayland 87 Comments

The Beryl project has won a lot of press time so far with its impressive tricks -- even more than its slower-evolving daddy, Compiz. There are several lose ends to Beryl's core engine and incompatibilities with existing applications or technologies. However, something that really put off a lot of people when they try Beryl is its dreadful settings manager.

Bring on the Bling with Beryl

Submitted by Hiev 2007-03-19 Wayland 22 Comments

"Desktop computing technology has evolved considerably since the first graphical user interface was developed by researchers at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center in 1973. Microsoft's Aero Glass, Apple's Quartz 2D Extreme, and Sun's Project Looking Glass are all poised to transform the way that users interact with computers. Also at the forefront of innovation, the Linux community has some prodigiously impressive new user interface technologies of its own. Beryl, a new open-source window manager for Linux, features compelling visual enhancements like support for transparent windows and elaborate window animations."

Beryl 0.2.0 Released

Submitted by Shadowline 2007-03-15 Wayland 118 Comments

"Beryl 0.2.0 is a complete overhaul of Beryl. The last stable release (0.1) featured a very fun, and eye-candy based compositing window manager. However, since it's release, many parts of Beryl have been rewritten, replaced, or simply dropped. It’s filled with eye-candy, better user support, new features, and stability."

Metisse: You Thought You Knew What 3D Was?

Submitted by michuk 2007-03-08 Wayland 36 Comments

"On Tuesday, January 25th Mandriva introduced a new project: Metisse LiveCD. In this article we are going to investigate the features offered by this promising project and see if Metisse can compete with the popular desktops in terms of ergonomics and ease of use."

Drag and Drop in Beryl

Submitted by dumbkiwi 2007-02-27 Wayland 47 Comments

Two more articles on Beryl. The first one is on drag and drop in Beryl: "What does Beryl add to the drag and drop picture? Well, for a start, if you've got a lot of windows open, it's easier to find the target if you can see all the windows at once. Also, if you want to drop a file/text on an application on another desktop, you can do this much more easily. This is a cool little feature that allows you to drag and drop files between applications on the same desktop, or different desktops." The second one is a performance tweak for Beryl.

Beryl Usability: Wheel Switcher, Wall

Submitted by dumbkiwi 2007-02-19 Wayland 30 Comments

Following on from three earlier articles, here are two more articles highlighting usability features of Beryl; the wheel window switcher and the 'wall' for managing virtual desktops. Videos included, so go on, indulge yourself, boys and girls.

Compiz: Update on xdevconf07, Beryl Situation

Submitted by GhePeU 2007-02-17 Wayland 48 Comments

David Reveman writes: "I'd like to get all of you updated on the compiz related things discussed at the X developer conference that was held last week. My talk was mainly focused on 'what's next' and how to get desktop compositing in X to the next level." He also discussed the fork: "I had the chance to talk to Quinn Storm from the beryl project during xdevconf. I would have hoped that the current situation with beryl could be improved but it seems like Quinn at least isn't interested in that. However, after talking to Quinn it's very clear to me that the fork was partially motivated by assumptions that were wrong."

X11 R7.2 Released

Submitted by tyrione 2007-02-15 Wayland 43 Comments

The X.Org community is proud to announce the release of X11R7.2, the third modular release of the X Window System. It incorporates significant stability and correctness fixes, including improved autoconfiguration heuristics, enhanced support for GL-based compositing managers such as Compiz and Beryl, and improved support for PCI systems with multiple domains. It also incorporates the new, more extensible XACE security policy framework.

Usability Features in Beryl 0.2.0

Submitted by dumbkiwi 2007-02-15 Wayland 18 Comments

The Beryl project has often been criticised as being nothing more than eyecandy for the sake of eyecandy. However, there are numerous features in Beryl which could improve usability and workflow. In this series of three articles, some of the new usability features in Beryl 0.2.0 are highlighted and explained (article I, article II, and article III).

Updates on the X Window System

Submitted by diegocg 2007-02-12 Wayland 12 Comments

LWN has a writeup sumarizing a talk from Keith Packard. RandR 1.2 with much improved handling of multiple input devices, improved EXA, libX11 with XCB support, OpenGL 2.0 support in Mesa, are some of the topics touched.

Preview: Beryl 0.2.0

Submitted by luna6 2007-02-05 Wayland 94 Comments

"Beryl 0.2.0 will be released shortly and I spent time the last week testing out Beryl 0.2.0 RC2 on Kubuntu's Edgy Eft. The improvements found in 0.2.0 are simply amazing. Improvements in usability features, improvements in the pure 3D eye candy, and even the Beryl Settings Manager has been improved (the layout has become much more logically laid out). As you read through this preview of Beryl 0.2.0 and see some of the screenshots, I think you will get a firm grasp on how impressive Beryl can be. Basically, Beryl makes OS X and Vista look old and antiquated."

On Favouritism, Apologies, and Black Helicopters

Thom Holwerda 2006-12-23 Wayland 101 Comments

Apparently, my article a few days ago caused a bigger stir than I had anticipated, not at all unrelated to the fact that my wordings may not have been optimal. So, let me clarify things a bit.

Has the Desktop Linux Bubble Burst?

Thom Holwerda 2006-12-21 Wayland 275 Comments

In 2002, both KDE and GNOME released their last major revisions; KDE released KDE 3.0 on 3rd April, while GNOME followed shortly after with GNOME 2.0 on 27th June. For the Linux desktop, therefore, 2002 was an important year. Since then, we have continiously been fed point releases which added bits of functionaility and speed improvements, but no major revision has yet seen the light of day. What's going on?