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Beryl back from the ashes by - Trackback - Beryl back from the

Beryl back from the ashes by - Trackback - Beryl back from the

Beryl back from the ashes
by cyberorg, Friday, May 15th @ 6:39 am

Linux_Ubuntu_geek
 writes:

Wake up all at Compiz as Beryl is alive and kicking !

You might be interested that over a weekend a mate and myself introduced Beryl back in to the fold. This is a direct result of our frustration of how bloated Compiz has become and is becoming more of a fashion thing rather than functional for having multiple desktops.
OK so I have been using Ubuntu 7.04 on and off for a couple of years now and Beryl comes as default. After Ubuntu 7.04 Compiz Fusion (now Compiz) came as default. To begin with this was not a problem but as Compiz became more complex with spheres, globes and other useless features, performance was becoming impaired.
Late one night I started looking at introducing Beryl to Ubuntu 9.04 (Alpha 6). As expected there were numerous depedendency issues.
Piratesmack looked in to the same possibilty and together we pooled our resources and after running many scripts and testing by myself Piratesmack compiled some dependency free deb. packages.

Piratesmacks Beryl 0.2.1 deb. packages for Ubuntu 9.04
http://files.filefront.com/beryl+fixed+904tarbz2/;13596520;/fileinfo.html

Save to home directory

extract tar.bz2

cd beryl-fixed-9.04

sudo ./install.sh

Piratesmacks Beryl 0.2.1 deb. packages for Ubuntu/Mint
http://files.filefront.com/beryl+packages+021tarbz2/;13508777;/fileinfo.html

Save to home directory

extract tar.bz2

cd beryl-packages-0.2.1

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Beryl 0.2.1 on Ubuntu 9.04
http://s266.photobucket.com/albums/ii256/Linux_Ubuntu_geek/?action=view&current=Screenshot.png

Beryl 0.2.1 on Mint 6
http://s266.photobucket.com/albums/ii256/Linux_Ubuntu_geek/?action=view&current=Screenshot-1.png

One thing you cannot do is knock the simplicity of Beryl and how much more useful it is than modern day Compiz.

So for those who wish to mock I say Beryl is far from dead and people want it as they are downloading it for the very reasons I have outlined above.

LUg.


24 Comments »
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  1. : shapeshifter, May 15 @ 11:54 am

    lol rubbish.
    As if “spheres, globes and other useless features” would have any impact on performance. If you don’t use these plugins, they consume no ressources. Beryl is a buggy pile of ideas, compiz is a refined product. There’s no sane reason to use beryl…

  2. : Pirlo, May 15 @ 12:35 pm

    I am one of those who used Beryl with much enjoinment,but now:
    why don’t you work all toghether with the others people for a new, refined and fast Compiz?

  3. : clicks, May 15 @ 1:21 pm

    Oh no, not again. What is the problem with the Compiz/Fusion/Beryl Developers? Why do you start new forks/projects over and over again instead of concentrating on one common goal? The current move towards c++ and a cleaner codebase seems to be reasonable, why revive this old piece of motly code patches. Perhaps the spirit was better during the beryl-time and you where “the leader”, but no it is gone and we should focus on the current development.

  4. : James, May 15 @ 2:26 pm

    I for one welcome his, after all, isn’t the spirit of open source is choice. And here we have choice. I have tried Ubuntu and found compiz slowed it down, I now use sidux cos it is fast and light. I also use openbox with xcompmgr which is nice and lightweight. If beryl can work well than why not? If beryl was made to work on debian (64bit lenny, squeeze and sid) straight as well as for other distros, I for one would use it and feedback with info and help.
    Dont be put off by the others, Ubuntu and compiz are not the holy grail of software!

  5. : b0le, May 15 @ 4:42 pm

    Out of interest, is there anyone working on it, or is it just packages for the old code?

  6. : b0le, May 15 @ 4:44 pm

    Out of interest, is there anyone working on this, or is it just packages for the old code?

  7. : 6205, May 15 @ 5:24 pm

    I am sick of entire compositing community. Somebody should kick your ases badly damn loosers.

    Seriously whats your problem? When will you finaly work together and bring us Compiz 1.0?

    There was already enough derivates and only thing what you MUST DO is BUGFIXING and OPTIMIZATIONS..

    NOBODY NEED’s 10+ variations. NOBODY NEEDS ANY NEW PLUGINS. Only basic, simple and nice effects are optimal..Vista Aero is on market almost 3 years and your ‘amazing’ eye candy shit is still not enough stable, compatible or bug free in comparision even to Vista Beta 2..

    Shame on you. Go to hell with entire linux crap..

  8. : eVoQ, May 15 @ 8:01 pm

    #7 “Seriously whats your problem? When will you finaly work together and bring us Compiz 1.0?”

    Way to thank the community of the developers that bring you a nice and useful piece of code. Those are not manners, mate.

    Hold on!… “Shame on you. Go to hell with entire linux crap.” Yeah! That totally gave you up.

  9. : 6205, May 15 @ 8:13 pm

    #8

    I have already chilled out, but you must agree that this is not a right way. I mean every frakin year we are hearing of ‘The Year Of The Desktop Linux’ but we are far from that…But why???

    One could only imagine how great would things be if for example XFCE would cooperate with GNOME on one desktop enviroment. GNOME Baker devs. would work with Brasero team. Rhythmbox with Banshee, Xine folks with Mplayer people and yes - Compiz/Beryl/Compiz Fusion/Compiz++/Compiz WHATEVERversion developers would work also TOGETHER…

    My frustration si currently endless…

  10. : Linux_Ubuntu_geek, May 15 @ 9:10 pm

    Well this seems to be receiving a somewhat predictable backlash.

    Beryl when it was abandoned abruptly and somewhat rudely in was quite adequate for what most people needed.

    The advantage that Beryl has is its simplicity and functionality and indeed is more suitable for older machines. For example run Compiz on a 1.8ghz P4 with 512mb RAM and performance is noticeably sluggish. Run Beryl on the same machine and performance is snappy even if you wish to enable 3D windows, Animations etc.

    Some of you guys can say what you like but the fact is people are downloading it so there is clearly interest.

    LUg.

  11. : tomm, May 16 @ 11:56 am

    wasnt the reason beryl was dropped as it was slow and buggy. (at the time) , I remember compiling a very early version compiz fusion on feisty and it was so much faster than beryl but sadly its seems compiz is all slow and bloated now.

  12. : Photon, May 16 @ 1:06 pm

    Any chance for a x64 version?

    I haven’t used Beryl since it was abandonned and can’t compare the speed any more. Also I don’t think that things like the Cube Deformation Plugin are unneccesary. But the good old Beryl Manager was much better than CCSM! There was a blog post recently about working on CCSM since it was described as unintuitive by many users and I think returning to what the Beryl Manager used to be would be quite cool.

  13. : Maxim, May 16 @ 2:07 pm

    What compiz?

    Beryl was the real ‘beryl’ of the Linux, great community, fast develpment rate, no backup from some large company.
    Merger killed it.

    What we have now?
    A compiz++ which wasn’t updated for a month, and yet many plugins are missing

    Few developers, many bugs in stable version which probably won’t be fixed, …

    Like I said all enthusiasm gone somewhere.

    R.I.P compiz and the hope for great linux desktop

  14. : el barto, May 16 @ 5:43 pm

    of course, you can use kwin4 with kde4 :P

  15. : Maxim, May 16 @ 7:22 pm

    What a revolving turn of events….

    I always used KDE, but became sick of KDE 4, its bugs, and political approach
    (like the dolphin, look style, kwin4, and dumbed down and unusable plasma)

    Now I use and enjoy gnome, but is appears that KDE and its kwin4 is the only hope for decent 3d effects

    (compiz is nice, but is has lots of bugs, and I can use it knowing that I can fix it, but now the ‘old’ compiz is officially dead, and new compiz++ isn’t born, and chances are slim it will)

  16. : Maxim, May 16 @ 7:26 pm

    But to add to my previous comment:

    I have learn something:

    I always opposed to several splits that exist in linux world like kde/gnome.

    Not anymore :-)

    Only competition can drive linux forward.

    If there were no merger between compiz and beryl we weren’t in this situation now.

  17. : Links 16/05/2009: GlusterFS 2.0 Out, OpenOffice.org 3.1 Benchmarks? | Boycott Novell, May 17 @ 5:15 pm

    [...] Beryl back from the ashes You might be interested that over a weekend a mate and myself introduced Beryl back in to the fold. This is a direct result of our frustration of how bloated Compiz has become and is becoming more of a fashion thing rather than functional for having multiple desktops. [...]

  18. : Links 16/05/2009: GlusterFS 2.0 Out, OpenOffice.org 3.1 Benchmarks? | All about MICROSOFT, May 18 @ 12:44 am

    [...] Beryl back from the ashes You might be interested that over a weekend a mate and myself introduced Beryl back in to the fold. This is a direct result of our frustration of how bloated Compiz has become and is becoming more of a fashion thing rather than functional for having multiple desktops. [...]

  19. : Nox, May 18 @ 9:15 am

    Where are these bugs you people keep mentioning?
    Are they in the “Cube” and similar worthless plugins?

    @Photon
    Have you tried simple-ccsm, or using the search in the “advanced” ccsm?

  20. : Photon, May 18 @ 1:21 pm

    @Nox: Of course I have. I personally have no problems with CCSM since I’m already using it for quite a long time. But every first time user is complaining about not finding the right settings in the CCSM - and I can understand it.

  21. : SmSpillaz, May 19 @ 5:16 pm

    *headbash*

    For all of you who don’t realize, this was a reposting of a comment that happened on cyberorg’s blog a while ago, most likely as a joke to repackage beryl. =)

    Yes it’s true compiz hasn’t seen any development in a while, but you have to be patient and understand that all the developers are ridiculously busy with real life.

    Don’t worry - I see a compiz rennaisance in the pipeline somewhere in the future.

  22. : Linux_Ubuntu_geek, May 20 @ 12:09 am

    @ SmSpillaz

    BERYL IS NO JOKE

    AT PRESENT COMPIZ IS THE JOKE

    LUg.

  23. : Linux_Ubuntu_geek, May 20 @ 12:15 am

    @ SmSpillaz

    Beryl is back as a direct result of Compiz becoming too bloated and people are downloading it to install on the modern Ubuntu/Mint releases so it has clearly generated some interested.

    The wonder of Beryl is its simplicity which is something Compiz lost after the release of 0.7.6

    LUg.

  24. : SmSpillaz, May 20 @ 4:37 am

    *sigh*

    Beryl:
    a) Lacks half the functionality of compiz
    b) Is ridiculously slow
    c) Is unstable
    d) Has no maintainable code base
    e) Is full of cheap hacks in core that break with distro updates and / or X.org updates.
    f) Did I also say that it has no developers?

    The problem as I see it is not that we don’t have competition as the result of the merger - we have plenty of that, just look at KWin and Mutter. The problem is that we _are_ rebasing on new code which does take a lot of time quite naturally (Think, about 100~ plugins to adapt and all the big plugins need to be rewritten). Then the other problem is just out of fortune - we have lost our big commercial contributors (Novell) and all of our volunteer contributors (and I stress, volunteer) have all had their real lives catch up with them. b0le, klange, iXce and I have university entrance / semester examinations with big assignments due. KristianL and maniac have larger work commitments. onestone is writing his uni thesis.

    Like I said, at some point you should see a rennaisance at some point where activity picks up as normal again. This is part of a cycle that affects most volunteer projects because time is donated to them out of time that can be spared.

    So no, to make a long answer short, trying to repackage Beryl is not going to solve any problems and make the entire composite window manager community look even more unprofessional.