Beryl. The Windows Aero?

Beryl is a windows manager for Ubuntu Linux that puts some eye-candy on your desktop. For those people not aligned with Linux and subject to marketing efforts of Windows and having been woo-ed by Aero only, this is Beryl:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=beryl&search=Search

Beryl uses OpenGL to animate all those pretty effects. The number of options you have for customization is absolutely astounding. You can configure all effects for window events and then also configure individual timings and what not. Beryl also shows the X Cube, which is an invention of X/Linux. This cube helps in choosing your workspace.

I'm running Beryl on both NVIDIA 64MB card at home and my 128MB laptop computer. The 128M laptop is quite a bit slower and to remove very large windows with effects you notice the extensive cpu load, but still if you believe the video's, the performance should still be better than Aero.

Some people have loaded videos on YouTube that show how Beryl continues to run properly on standard current computers and do not need these "special" Aero graphic hardware that now seems to be demanded by Windows Vista to run with Aero. Have a look for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC5uEe5OzNQ

So, I guess we're finally here then. Windows Vista sucks and is already getting discounted:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070323-microsoft-announces-more-discounted-vista-licensing.html

• The aero interface is already under Linux with Beryl (and better, because it runs on your current hardware)
• There are no functional reasons to move to Vista, unless you want to be owned by your computer's Digital Restrictions Management
• "Upgrading" will cost you both in the license and your hardware
• Vista has a couple of incompatibilities with older software that is not going to run. Are you sure you are not affected?
• Windows upgrade advisor

My advice is... if you are looking for something new... get Ubuntu! I am using it on two computers right now and there is no reason for any of my productivity apps to move to Windows. The only reason anybody should ever have to move to Windows is for games or multi-media editing applications (Yes, there are plenty available like Kino, Cinelerra etc..., but their usability and stability is not very good at all).

Actually, you can move *now* to Ubuntu, but go straight to the distribution named "Edgy", which is the latest release. As soon as Feisty Fawn comes out, you'll be able to upgrade.

If you are that person that will have to reinstall anyway:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2082982,00.asp

you might as well consider it in your "upgrade". I haven't even told anyone about the features of "apt". Imagine a very, very, very, very large repository of software on a server. And this server is connected to the Internet. This server contains all definitions of package dependencies, compatibilities, kernel versions, distributions etc. available. And then from your PC, by typing in:

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

*ALL* (yes, *ALL*, not just kernel, not just the "main" Linux software or packages, but *ALL*) the software on your computer is automatically upgraded to the latest version possible, taking into account dependencies on other packages, taking into account if you have removed certain end-softwares that no longer use a certain other piece of software.

That is APT.

So, get Edgy from here:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/6.10/release/

burn your CD and go for it. When Feisty comes out officially, you will be able to upgrade over the Internet (yep, free and gratis!). Then start reading from info here:

http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edgy

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/

Also use Google. Type "+Ubuntu" at the beginning and anything else that is of your concern. The reason is that this normally shows the ubuntuforums and other information. Notice that the Ubuntu people generally provide easier and more generic methods to resolve your problems. If you go with other distributions, the resolutions are generally more technical in nature.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%2BUbuntu+%2Bberyl&btnG=Search

Have fun!

G>

MS Vista vs. Linux source code control...

MS Vista has been delayed a couple of times and this is often attributed to different factors. This article shows how Windows did the version management. Check it out:

You have a very large number of branches that sometimes need to be integrated. The whole point of these branches is to establish "quality control exit gates", where the code will not pass upstream unless it passes the quality control check. This is a nice thought and that part might work, but there is another consideration for quality to be made here... immediate synchronization with other code. Now, the person writing this article is convinced that without this level of "management", nothing will ever ship.

Consider the Linux kernel. There is basically one mailing list and one mailing list only. There exists an idea of "separation of expertise", but not really "separation of concern or by branch". This does not mean that branches are not used, but they are temporary. The only longer-lived branches are kernel version branches (2.2, 2.4, 2.6), so you have different streams there.

The mailing list is considered total chaos (if you live up to MS terms). Everybody has access to every comment, even if they don't work on it and comments on everything. Filtering on your area of interest may be quite difficult, but in the end you can gather insight into everything that is going on. Messages in the middle establish "code freezes" (sent by Linux) when another version of Linux is to be closed off.

What I am ignoring so far is that Windows is much more than just a kernel, so the comparison is not truly fair. The problems that Windows may have faced in Vista is not necessarily "quality control", but immediate access to new features and managing the streams of code in real-time. Now, I am not saying there is a solution to this dilemma, but there is a problem to be solved.

If you rely on the quality gates, then a new feature that you depend on may only arrive after two weeks. Forget about putting pressure. Then you need to start a political fight with another department with a different budget and different bosses to get this feature in or *your* project will delay. Truth is that it's not truly the concern of that other department.

Open Source does not have a deadline and no requirement to make everything backwards compatible. Windows this is highly desired. So Windows needs to maintain backwards-compatible API's using a new structure of the kernel, but "looking" the same. We all know this is an impossible task...

So... we can argue... is the shipping of Windows Vista truly a miracle and good management, or could it have shipped way earlier if they would have managed things differently? Their personal experience shows that the way how it initially worked wasn't actually working very well...