Beryl+Kubuntu

Is this possible? I would also like to be able to switch between KDE and Beryl so I always have the option of a more stable, less distracting interface. I've already googled beryl installation guides for the KDE environment without success. Can anyone help?

 

This guide makes quite a few mentions of KDE, and doesn't require extensive terminal knowledge (thank God )

 

When you install beryl, what happens is you start up this little "beryl-manager" applet that sits in the system tray. You can click on that, and switch between the basic KDE window manager, and the flashy beryl one, all without logging out or closing programs or anything. I actually also install "aquamarine", which lets you use the KDE window decorations in Beryl, so the two window managers look completely consistent, except the windows in Beryl shiver, the desktop is a transparent cube, and they burn up when I close them

 

I tried the commands in vespoli's link (thanks btw) for fetching the beryl packages, but it couldn't find the said packages. All of my adept manager repositories are enabled, so this problem is beyond me. Anyone have a solution?

 

did you add the repositories that were in the tutorial?

the packages are in those repos, not the main (K)Ubuntu repos.

 

Great; in all of my linux wisdom I tried adding an archive to my repositories and now adept will not open. How do I edit repositories without adept?

 

bc135: sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list

 

OK Adept is working again but I still have to add the repositories. I'm using the ones listed in the tutorial:

deb http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/ edgy main
deb-src http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org edgy main

I tried adding these in the Konsole but I had trouble saving them so I opened the file sources.list with Kate. I added the lines as per the instructions and I tried to save it but received this error:


There are no adept applications open that I know of.

 

That's why I said "sudo". You have to edit that file as root. A general user can't change it.

 

Please bear with me on this part, b/c the rest of the tutorial seems simple enough; how do I save the sources.list file in the Konsole?

 

You can't. You would have had to start Konsole with "sudo". You could do a Save As to your home directory or somewhere, and then copy it to the correct place with sudo, but that would be just about as difficult. Seriously, I told you to open it as "sudo" for a reason.

 

Yes, I understand the role of sudo well enough, and I followed your instructions, but I need to know how to save the text after I have edited it; the text gets opened in the Konsole, not Kate.

 

well, you could just substitute kate for vi in the command that he gave you, that will open the sources.list file in Kate.

so you know, vim is probably something you don't want to be messing with, although I find it's much faster to use it than GUI editors. all commands are entered with the keyboard. make sure you're out of INSERT mode by hitting escape, then you're able to enter commands. to enter a command, you prefix it with a colon, then the usually one-letter command. in your case, you would go ":w" ( Write a file) then ":q" ( Quit). Pretty straight forward, you just have to know how it works.

http://www.vim.org/docs.php is a good place to start.

another good program to use on the command line is nano, which is what the tutorial on the beryl website suggested. I prefer Vim because it's what I'm used to and it does syntax highlighting, which is a bonus if you're editing your xorg.conf file or something. Nano is a little easier to use, as it includes a list of commands at the bottom of a window. (hint: ^ = ctrl)

Moral of the story, any text editor you like can be substituted and launched from the command line. With full root privileges if you use sudo.

 

This whole fiasco I caused was useless; sorry guys. I just went into adept, selected Manage Repositories, and added the archives. I then enter the following into the command line:

sudo apt-get install beryl

and the rest was VERY easy; beryl looks awesome!!!!

Thank you for all your patience, people.

 

PS: does anyone know how to make beryl start automatically?

 

Last time I used beryl there was a red ruby tray icon for it. If you clicked it you could get to "default manager" and "safe-mode" as we as toggle what you are currently using, and config a bunch of nifty options for the application.

 

I tried to use Beryl again today after trying several months ago and it killed my title bars on all my programs as well as the taskbar in Kicker. I had to drop to a terminal, kill the Beryl process, then kill X and log back in to fix it.

I don't think Beryl is supposed to work on a computer this old anyway. =P

- Trip

 

Finding the Emerald and Beryl settings manager was easy; but I've searched through it a few times and I haven't found an option for automatically starting. Perhaps it is not included in my version?

 

Sorry to ask so many question, but I have one last one regarding KDE; when I move the mouse pointer over start bar icons such as Amarok, a message box appears telling me what it is (Amarok, audio player). This is getting very annoying with Beryl's preview minimized window feature. How do I turn off these message boxes?

 

actually, now that I think of it.. I know how to make it start in ghome automatically, you have to add the control application to the startup list...

I think you will find this link useful..
http://wiki.beryl-project.org/wiki/Autostart_for_Kubuntu

also find a ton more information at this site for configuration options.

 

this is the best way to achieve eye candy for older laptops!!! I got Ubuntu edgy working with beryl and i compare my laptop with my friends Vista and i always see a dissapointment in their face compared to their laptops! i love it...

btw my laptop is a sony vaio s260!

 

I've been using Edgy+Beryl for over 6 months (back when Beryl was Compiz-Quinn) and let me be the first to tell you that while it's fun at first...in a few days, weeks or months (depending on what you use it for)..you'll get annoyed with it.

I did. I had a perfectly running stable Edgy+Beryl install on my desktop and I formatted that partition to put Vista Ultimate on.

I got tired of having to make compromises on what software I could use (what Opensource offerred - not being able to use iTunes with my iPod or purchased music/videos), trying to get Windows apps to work with Wine, not having driver support for everything (webcam, Blackberry, etc) and tired of having Ubuntu updates break either my X server or something else forcing me to waste hours getting it back.

To each his own but since I've used Ubuntu for some time, I can safely say I'm happier using Vista...never had a crash or issue and everything just works. I'm a CS major so Linux command line is nothing for me but STILL I have a job and I want to come home to a system that is just as easy as possible to use.

Sadly in my experience that hasn't been Ubuntu - maybe in a few years.

 

To each his own. I refuse to allow crapware like iTunes on my machine. My girlfriend was amazed at how nicely AmaroK worked with her iPod, how much easier it was than iTunes. It doesn't have video support as far as I know, but I haven't played with it that much. If you need to use Windows apps, then use Windows. I've found that I can function better and easier for most everything I want to do under Linux, including games, multimedia (able to use the same player for ALL video, and a different one for ALL audio?? Say it ain't so!), I love how I update the system and all of my software is updated, I don't have to keep on top of what the latest version of Gaim or Firefox or IE or whatever is separately. It's all just there. For me (and many people), Ubuntu is easier and better than Windows in many respects.

But to each his own I prefer my freedom over spending a lot of money for buggy, bloated, phone-home, treat-the-consumer-like-a-criminal crapware.

 

Cheers to that!!

 

Just got tired of having to use OSS apps and compromise....GAIM instead of
Trillian (even the latest GAIM beta is **** compared to Trillian's now old version, their new version looks to be even better).

I tried Amarok, Bleep, RythmBox and for me they don't come close to the ease and power of iTunes. I'm sure you can sync your iPod with Amarok or other Linux apps but it's just not the same...at least not for me. Ability to have iTunes download my podcasts automatically, purchase music/videos easily,etc. and then all I do is plugin my iPod and boom it's done. Coverflow is a nice eyecandy touch too.

Not sure about your comment for one player for all video and audio. It's been possible in Windows for years by installing codecs JUST like in Linux. You can also always use VLC if you want and most media players on Windows today can play any audio/video themselves - you just pick one.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who prefer Ubuntu...after having used it for sometime now though I just want people who are looking to try it out to make sure they understand that there's some valid good points and then there's a LOT OF HYPE.

Unless all you are going to do is browse the internet/check email etc. over a wired network connection at some point you will have to revert to a shell (bash or whatever) for command line and the moment you have to do that, you just made it more complicated/pain-in-the-ass for the average user than Windows.

Just my 2 cents.

 

I understand that Beryl can stop working after updates; are there any particular update, say, for KDE, that cause these problems?

 

See, AmaroK doesn't even bother with the "sync" bit unless you want it to. And it can read files from the iPod without having to "pair" with it. Amazing, eh? iTunes refuses to let your iPod sync (or even communicate) with multiple iTunes instances. So, you can't set it up to work with your laptop while on the road, and desktop while at home. It's to prevent piracy and appease the media companies, but screw that, I'll use my hardware as I'd like, thank you very little. And it looks like AmaroK has supported downloading podcasts since 2005. Not to mention that anything you buy through Apple is grossly overpriced, along with all other music... people aren't stupid, they understand how much it costs to produce a music album vs. a movie, and movies cost the same if not just slightly more for the end product.

Call me when VLC works as a seamless plugin to my browser on Windows, playing all content, like mplayer does. Oh, wait... that only works under Linux

I have also configured my laptop to work on wireless without ever touching any config files. I just installed knetworkmanager and it just worked. Even better than Windows in many cases, as it has a proper networking setup. One that doesn't randomly find itself unable to resolve localhost to 127.0.0.1 (it's even in my hosts file in Windows... there's nothing more I can do.)

What it comes down to is that you just learned Windows first, and are more comfortable solving problems in a paradigm you understand. That's what I've found is almost 90% of people's problem with Linux, is that it's not Windows, but they keep expecting it to behave like Windows. If you want Windows, use Windows. If you want a computing experience that is different, and in many ways more capable and definitely more free (as in freedom, not as in beer), then try Linux, and give it an honest shot. You won't get all the same bells and whistles as on Windows, especially if you insist on using hardware that is supported under Windows only (or would you expect your Amiga display to work on your PC?), but you won't get the same anti-customer crap they have, either.

 

Your response is one of the reasons many people I know don't even bother with Linux. The holier than thou attitude of Linux users..

To each his own. I'm done with this thread. Later.

 

I truly fail to see that attitude in Pitabred's post. I know what to look for, as I pull out the attitude every now and again. (Hey, gimme a break, why WOULDN'T I want to brag?)

And to bc135, I've found the most stable version of Beryl (from the Ubuntu repos at least) to be v1.99.2, or something along those lines. Short version number compared to the others. Some later versions gave me a white cube.

 

Yes it's 1.99.2, any other release after that breaks XGL. There's a way to fix it by setting it to Indirect Rendering and Render Path to Copy or something.

I stopped using it on my desktop after the latest ATI (fglrx) driver...I think 8.34.08 or something ran my X800XL's fan at full speed all the time. Checking the Ubuntu forum, it seems lots of other people are having the same issue.

Yet another thing I don't have to worry about when using "inferior" Windows XP/Vista.

Like I said, Ubuntu has it's perks but it's by no means anywhere close to a true Windows replacement at this time.

 

So beryl can be crippled by an update? Is this a common problem?

 

Beryl is quite common - it's still beta software.

I know I'll get flamed for this but it's not just a problem with Beryl - it can happen with Kubuntu/Ubuntu too. Be careful (I'm speaking from experience) in installing updates...if your system is running perfectly you may not even bother to do it.

Be especially careful with kernel updates because they can break your video drivers (you need to recompile them).

One of the biggest pitfalls of relying 100% on OpenSource software is the sad fact that the great people behind it are just like me and you. There's no money behind it so a lot of it happens on people's free time, etc. The QA on OSS updates/releases isn't always as good as with commercial apps - but that's just my observation.

But hey, what am I saying...it's SO MUCH better than Windows right?

 

My previous posts regarding Linux:
"In 2009 I see Linux taking on the gaming market, because that's the only thing left for them to conquer really."

I gather from most of your posts that you are pro-Linux, but the truth is that Linux hasn't really conquered anything; this isn't a matter of my opinion, as I am neutral towards the OS, but a matter of just getting facts straight here. Linux hasn't conquered much really. In my opinion it's just making itself known to common users as it still lacks these critical implementations:
- laptop power management is completely missing
- 99% universal hardware compatibility akin to Windows is lacking
- Wifi support is really not present, which is ridiculous
- Linux has not abandoned the command line yet, which is an archaic and unfamiliar user interface for the 99% of users who are accustomed to Windows. Even with Beryl and the upcoming KDE 4.0 Linux has failed to abandon the command line, which means that thousands more users will be unable to competently troubleshoot that driver/hardware problem.

Save for laptop power management, all these implementations must be completed in order to prepare Linux for competition with Windows; because I think we can assume that Linux developers will want to go for the "big apple".

Linux isn't meant to be a gaming platform; it never was. The closest thing we've seen so far for Windows compatible games has been Wine, and Wine is unreliable at best except for the most common and generic games. Linux is, in fact, behind Microsoft's now "old" OS of Windows XP in terms of gaming. So I fail to see how Linux has "conquered everything except for gaming".

Another post:

"Linux has several advantages, especially in the ease-of-use area. It's easy to find software you need with a distribution like SUSE or Ubuntu, which keep repositories of compatible, installable software. "

Are you kidding? Linux is not easy to use, at least not even nearly as easy as XP. Chances are high that after installation you WILL find yourself troubleshooting a device on your computer that the Linux distro considers exotic. Take my experience with Kubuntu for example. Recently I struggled with getting my Atheros wireless card working, you can check the thread yourself. Most of the Linux forums out there are devoted to device troubleshooting.

Overall the SETUP (not installation) of Linux is very tricky. But if you are persistent and very patient, usually your efforts will pay off and by then you will have had so much experience in dabbling with the OS that you will know how to use it. Good luck if you decide to dive in.

 

The fact of the matter is that you can't blame poor hardware support on the operating system. With Windows, the manufacturer provides drivers of their own that they've built, tested, etc. With Linux, in some cases (Intel, in particular) you'll get drivers built by the companies, but a lot of times you're relying on people who have to reverse-engineer drivers.

I bought a webcam at Christmas time that was supposed to have Linux drivers. Little did I know that Creative packed a different chip in the same box, so now I'm waiting on a project to reverse engineer the chip and create a Linux driver.

I sympathize with your problems with X though. Updates hosing the OS are the exact reason I moved from Fedora Core to Kubuntu, because Fedora stopped working after updates on three separate occasions. No such issues with Kubuntu yet.

I believe the next version of Trillian is supposed to work on Linux anyway, at least that's what I remember hearing. Not that I'll be moving off of Gaim any time soon.

I can definitely understand your frustrations with Linux. I'm a technical person who enjoys troubleshooting the system. However, I specifically buy hardware that I know will play nice with Linux (upgraded my wireless card from an Orinoco to an Intel and it works muuuuch better) and so I minimize my potential problems.

I am of the belief that it is ready for the desktop, at least for people who don't do more than browse the internet, check e-mail, etc. The rest will come in time. Ubuntu is a young project still.

- Trip

 

@bc135 - Sorry to hear that Linux is hard to use. I guess we assume that people wanting to learn Linux are not senior citizens (>60 years old) and that they have moderate computer literacy.

I found that my +10 years on Windows were hellish ones. I know a lot more about Windows than Linux, but I was stressed out a lot more about my install. My recent +2 years on Linux has been a happy one, in contrast, and I feel like I have more control over every little aspect of the OS. I enjoy a lot of "geeky features" of Linux (command line, shell scripts, etc.) but distros like Ubuntu are tremendously user friendly IMHO.

 

Great attitude, and you wonder why more people don't try Linux?

 

Since this thread is starting to heat up, I'd like to first say I mean no disrespect by this post.

Linux hasnt conquered anything? Its certainty conquered the server world. They're starting to carve out a bigger nitch in the desktop world. Not that they'd be noticed with microsofts advertising campaign. Each release of linux gets faster and faster, even on older hardware. Windows just gets more difficult for the average computer to run with each new release. I have an old machine with a 1ghz celeron processor and 256mb of RAM. Its running Ubuntu 6.10 with full beryl effects nearly flawlessly. A clean install of XP chugs along very slowly. Vista wont even run. Before my old Athlon XP 1.4ghz machine with 1GB died, it was running an even heavier distro, Sabayon 3.2 with full Beryl just as well as my laptop can.

Also, my laptop with Sabayon (And when I had Ubuntu or Suse on it) has all the same power management that a default Windows install offers. It can utilize Intels Speedstep on the Pentium M and underclock the video card with power play. The only thing I havent done is undervolt the processor, but with windows you need a 3rd party program to do that, and most users wouldnt even know undervolting exists.

Granted, hardware compatibility is still lacking on a lot of distros, but its gotten a lot better. Sabayon linux and PCLinuxOS seem to recognize just about any hardware out there. I've installed them on some pretty obscure machines in the past several weeks and everything ran right off the install. Including wireless.

That Athlon XP machine I spoke of earlier is very...umm...shall we say "exotic". The parts are from everywhere and XP gave me a huge fit trying to get everything running, even something simple like sound. Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, and Sabayon recognised everything right away, even a USB wireless card plugged into a PCI to USB hub. Most other distros I've tried on that machine give me a problem with the sound though, and sometimes the wireless, but thats it.

Whats wrong with command line? The only reason I touch it in Sabayon or Suse is because I like to use it. But both those distros have everything accessible in the GUI.

It all depends on which distributions you look at. When looking at some of the much more well developed distros, the only thing they havent conquered is gaming. And if one of the linux developers wants to directly compete with microsoft, it will be one of the big well developed ones.

If linux isnt easy to use, how did my grandmother, who has touched a computer only a couple of times, figure out all the basic everybody computer functions in linux in about 20 minutes. Windows XP frustrated her and she gave up.

Once ANY distro is at a stable point, it will stay stable. Windows always has that tendency to FUBAR itself out of the blue for little to no reason, even if its been stable for months.

 

Even better than what I had to say, Twilight.

So even older people CAN use Linux. Right on.

 

Ubuntu is one of the only distros i love. it is very easy compared to most others. It has a full load of drivers bulit in the OS, and it would be a great OS for older PC's that the XP or VIsta isnt possible to be installed on. Get that old computer thats rusting up in your closet and install ubuntu! I am sure it will run just fine...