I Stopped Using Beryl And Live To Tell About It

[rodneyck]

Yes, folks, you heard correctly. I am one of the lucky few that unplugged myself from the 3d Desktop world, also known as Beryl, and stand before you with only minor cuts and scrapes. I walked away and live to tell my story. Gosh, I am like one of those shark attack survivors.

What's that? Some user in the third row just yelled "Who would do such a thing and why?" I will tell you. Because after trying several distros (yes, I test a lot of them...and not because I don't have a life, really), Beryl seems to run the slowest under Ubuntu/Kubuntu than most distros out there. I have no idea why this is, but it does. After just turning it off, there is definitely a speed increase when applications and windows open, and for some reason, webpages download. Go ahead...try it. I know, it's even hard to turn it off for a moment, the hand starts to shake.

Here is a free tip. I turned on the KDE built in shadows (turned off the transparency features, but they are there if you want them) and it looks and appears just like Beryl's windows with shadows. Who knew?

What I gain is still tons of speed in the way applications behave. What I loose, however, are wobbly windows....ewww, can't live without those. A 3D cube I used once to impress a friend, who was only mildly impressed. I hate that. By the way, it was faster to just click the KDE pager that lives in the taskbar than to use the 3D cube *sigh*. The wondrous Jeannie (or is that Gennie?) effect had to go...never really liked that one. Most of the other stuff..um, never really utilized..at all...zilch..nada. Oh wait, I did accidental touch the side of the screen with my mouse and the windows all minimized so I can choose the one that I wanted....by accident. Did you get that part? I could never figure out how to make it work manually. I just thought it was a rare treat and accepted my good fortune.

Seriously, I am much happier without Beryl, because speed is far more important to me. Plus, Beryl did not always start-up and shutdown as smoothly as it did under Gnome. Some apps would have "issues" with it. Lets just leave it at that. Beryl needs to have more substance. It is shallow, superficial and gives bad bloat.

What I don't have is a support buddy, you know, in case I get the itch to light up and wobble my window. Anyone else fed up with Beryl and need support walking away?

[cantodea]

Re: I Stopped Using Beryl And Live To Tell About It

Hi,

I'm running Kubuntu Edgy with Beryl for a week now and yes you're right. It is slowing down my system (Dell Dimension 9150, Intel Dual Core 3.0, 1.5 gig of RAM, Nvidia Geforce 7300 with 512 RAM on its own) for 40 %. I haven't tried it on other distros so i can not compare on that part. I did test Windows Vista full bloated on this system, it was even worser. I think the whole 3D Desktop, be it Beryl or Vista ultimate, is a nice gadget, but no more than that. It isn't adding any functionality or ease of use.
KDE 4/Plasma will be far more important for Linux than Beryl. Maybe in the near or far future the concept may work on even more powerfull systems.

Cantodea

[slackrat]

Re: I Stopped Using Beryl And Live To Tell About It

You guys dont know how glad I was to hear this!

I'm so glad to hear these posts. I was beginning to think I would eventually have to install all that 3D nonsense to see what the fuss was about. I dont want it on linux or windows atm, and the ones ive seen were just tacky eyecandy.....

if you want to get really seasick, check out lookingglass 3D , available as an iso .....when i need my computer, two D's are enough, when i need three dimensions? I get on with my life.....which is usually 3D...... :-P

When i need to get work done, 2D is enough, unless its graphics, then i have blender and a hundred other options.

mahalo!

[dibl]

Re: I Stopped Using Beryl And Live To Tell About It

I totally understand and respect your decision, but I'm using Beryl today and find it a great productivity enhancer. I'm real visual, and I can't deal with windows behind other windows, minimized windows, etc. -- I need to see what I'm working on, or it's no good. In my genealogy hobby, I typically read from a document or image, and I enter data from a document page into a database, and sometimes I need multiple census images open so I can compare them, alongside my database. Beryl lets me "flip" the screens around so I can see it all without constantly maximizing and minimizing windows, or shoving them between background and foreground. Sometimes I slide my database window halfway over to the next desktop/viewport, so I can read just the part that I need to see. My wife saw me working last night and said it made her dizzy to see the desktop spinning like that -- but to me it is just like flipping back and forth between pages in a book.

[slackrat]

Re: I Stopped Using Beryl And Live To Tell About It

Glad to hear its working and enhancing productiviity.....i think the sardonic posts here reflect the mania for eye candy which many dont need to get work done in spinning three D , and where more attention gets paid to themes or the like......im sure it does help a great deal with a number of jobs....thanks for the feedback...my guess is that it was like minded people like yourself who put all their time and effor into coding such tools, and not just folks makig ooh, ahhh, eye candy....


cheers

[dibl]

Re: I Stopped Using Beryl And Live To Tell About It

By the way, I recently discovered that the Enlightenment desktop, DR17, as implemented on elive, lets you "spin" the 4 desktops with the mouse wheel, same as Beryl. So, there is more than one way to get the same cat skinned, I guess.

[Razamanaz]

Re: I Stopped Using Beryl And Live To Tell About It

Interesting post. I have just jumped into Feisty with both feet and attempted Beryl once. Found I didn't have the right NVIDIA drivers so I am now slaying that dragon. Almost got it. But I have been contemplating whether or not to make the jump into Beryl and the information here was very helpful. I did have Compiz running on Ubuntu 6.0.6 and found that I hardly even used it except for that occasional ooooohhhhhh, aaaaaahhhhh effect when I was trying to sell people on Linux. Most people would say Linux, What's that? Then I would show them the compiz stuff. Now, I just want a reliable fast machine that isn't windoze. I have an iMac, which I love, But $$$$$$$$$$. Linux would be my next choice. Windoze is there out of necessity. Kids school projects use windows, My wife now has the Mac, She doesn't care as long as she print recipes and surf/research Lawn and gardening tips. I need it for work. But if I didn't, definately Linux, I have used other distros and I find the Ubuntu forums the best. Most reliable, Ubuntu. I think I found my distro. Now I just can't decide between Gnome or KDE.

[dptxp]

Re: I Stopped Using Beryl And Live To Tell About It

Feisty is coming with Compiz, disabled. You got to enable it. Compiz is more stable than Beryl.

These use a lot of resource, fine if want to play around, but unless you have a real high end system they can make the system real slow.

As far as Gnome or KDE or XFCE is concerned, if the system has 512 MB RAM or more, one can install Ubuntu (Gnome) and add the other two (you can start with any). You select while logging in and keep or remove the options. This is perhaps the best way to decide.

[ctt1wbw]

Re: I Stopped Using Beryl And Live To Tell About It

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I had beryl working under Ubuntu Edgy, but I did a clean install of Kubuntu Feisty and haven't bothered with beryl. Mind you, beryl is the shiznit, but I don't really need it. What I will always have, however, is a properly working ATI video card that supports 3d and OpenGL. That's what makes your system seem faster than it actually is. It does make a difference.

I have beryl working on my other laptop running Fedora Core 6, but it's not enabled by default. It's a cool gadget to get people fooled into thinking I'm running Vista, but that's about it.

[FOXX]

Re: I Stopped Using Beryl And Live To Tell About It

I didn't find it hard to step away from at all, it flat-out doesn't work for me.


I've tried fiddling around with the settings and searching for how-tos but at the end of the day I still think it's far too much work to get Beryl working on KDE for me. Off the top of my head here's a few issues:

-Screwing with my desktop pager (it recognizes one, I have four, I change it to four and it gives me sixteen...sigh)
-Screwing with my desktop backgrounds (leaves only one. I change it to viewport support and then the other three turn to a black screen beyond the taskbar...sigh)
-Removing title bars on windows for no apparent reason
-Moving taskbar notification icons off to the far corners of the screen miraculously
-Resizing my taskbar on its own
-Crashing the desktop upon changing back to KWin

...and those are all just off the top of my head, not even getting into deeper issues. I've heard Compiz is supposed to be installed by default with Feisty but I only hear about that with Gnome and not KDE though why I haven't heard about yet. I'm sure there was a good reason.



I'd very much like to get into having a 3D desktop but apparently the 3D desktop doesn't want me to get into it. I'm no stranger to hacking things into working (I come from Gentoo of several years and Slackware before that) but this is something I just don't seem to be able to justify a whole heck of a lot of time screwing around with.

[richbiskit]

Re: I Stopped Using Beryl And Live To Tell About It

Like one or two others above, i had Beryl with Ubuntu Edgy and it killed the speed of my otherwise speedy system! I have done a clean Kubuntu Feisty install now and to be honest, i just cant be bothered with Beryl!

I will play with Compiz when i get bored but really, all this 3D stuff just gets in the way.

I suppose it depends what you use your PC/Laptop for and whether or not you feel you the need to be 1 better than the guy next door who is always telling you how he just upgraded this or overclocked that

I love Kubuntu on my Laptop and my Desktop and i am pleased to say that Windows is a thing of the past and i am starting to feel the same about Beryl!! 8)

[Robin T Cox]

Re: I Stopped Using Beryl And Live To Tell About It

The speed loss with Beryl bothered me too.

But here's a neat way of achieving the same functionality by using 3ddesktop and Kompose without such a speed loss.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...hlight=kompose

[obnascar]

Re: I Stopped Using Beryl And Live To Tell About It

I am not running it but the word is the king of Beryl is the Linux distro Sabayon:
http://www.sabayonlinux.org/

Does anyone know if this is a fact ?

[theralfinator]

Re: I Stopped Using Beryl And Live To Tell About It

I am not running it but the word is the king of Beryl is the Linux distro Sabayon:
http://www.sabayonlinux.org/

Does anyone know if this is a fact ?

I havent tried Sabayon, but PCLinuxOS has been excellent for me as far as beryl goes. http://www.pclinuxos.com On my system, I can barely tell the difference as far as performance goes, and windows scaling along with the cube handling my virtual desktops has been really great to use. The other effects are just plain eye-candy, but I like it all! I haven't tried beryl with kubuntu yet though, so I can't speak for that.

[MoonRise]

Re: I Stopped Using Beryl And Live To Tell About It

Yep! I agree with ctt1wbw. Great to fool people to think you're running Vista! I only started fooling around with Beryl just to see how it operates. I have actually "convereted" a few because of Beryl.