From Gentoo Linux Wiki

[edit] The Wiki-Cleanup Movement

[edit] Editing Standards

[edit] Interwiki

As shown in this link before there are 2 pages on the Russian wiki that got interwiki links to this page: http://gentoo-wiki.com/index.php?title=HOWTO_XGL&diff=99906&oldid=99905&rcid=98785

Someone should find out what one is best and then remove the other one on the Russian wiki as well as make sure that the English wiki links to the correct one.

[edit] Consolidating Multiple Instructions That Accomplish the Same Darn Thing

• The goal here is to come to an agreement of a SINGLE method to run Xgl from each login manager into each Desktop environment. If multiple methods are desired, then move each login manager to a sub page, list the standard method first and then any other methods afterward warning users that they should know what theyre doing if they use them.

[edit] XDM

Theres only a line to launch Xgl. compiz and gnome-window-decorator need to be as well.

[edit] GDM

1. Remove half the junk about timeouts. In two lines you can say "The default timeout for loading an x-server from gdm is FOO. You can raise the limit by adding BAR to BILL if Xgl continaully times out."
2. Theres three methods. gdmsetup, manual and xsession. If gdmsetup is the most straight forward, remove the other two.
3. "Useful" scripts that aren't at all required should goto HOWTO_XGL/Tips and Tricks or somewhere else. Either that or we make a script that does it all in one shot and have ONE useful script.

[edit] KDM

I start KDE with XGL using the /etc/env.d/99kde-env file. This file calls upon the /usr/local/bin/compiz-decorator, which initializes compiz. Another modification is in /usr/kde/3.5/share/config/kdm/kdmrc files to launch Xgl instead of X. The method is pretty neat. Do people agree to make this the standard method for KDM?

I think this method is safe, because compiz is launched as a non-root user. --Floyd n milan 11:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I'd say we want to leave KDM section as it is. One method, real simple. --JBDubbs 12:49, 18 August 2006 (EST)

[edit] Manual

I just installed XGL on a Kubuntu system. Their method was pretty neat too. It involved making a generic .desktop file in xsessions for compiz and XGL. This allows to choose between normal X and XGL at login. X runs on :0 and XGL on :1 all the time, if XGL is started. This would work across all the DMs I guess. This could be used as a generic method. --Floyd n milan 11:13, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] General Discussion

[edit] Request to add XGL to Portage

I made a request in Bugzilla to add XGL to Portage, which is now bug #135329. Tommstein 23:37, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ATI compatibility reorgansiation

Why oh why was the ATI list made three times as long compared to all the other card lists (change was made around 03:36, 25 March 2006 by 75.3.58.119)? The original listings were concise and it was possible to see all the chipsets on one page. If you don't know your card's chipset, should you be using xgl at this stage? : (

213.105.224.12 09:24, 26 March 2006 (GMT)

[edit] Screenshots

Hey if anyone has this working and can take screenshots can you take a few and upload them to the wiki please? - Thrasher 01:53, 16 February 2006 (GMT)

I have it working, but when I try to make screenshot I see everything except what Xgl/Compiz is doing. So on the screenshot I see borderless non-transparent Windows. I also tried making a vid, but when I start recording, everything is very slow.

EDIT: I have a few screenshots, can you tell me where and how to upload them? Thanks

--T0maz 12:49, 16 February 2006 (GMT)

Special:Upload *upload here*

Thanks for the notice. I have added the screenshots I made so far. The filesize is quite big but I hope that's no big deal. The screens aren't really impressive and aren't much but if there's anything specific you want to see, I can make a screenshot of it. Unfortunately, video's don't work for me right now (they worked at start, and transparent video's are quite cool!). Also, can someone nice it up? As I wrote, I'm quite the wiki newbie. :-)

--T0maz 18:00, 16 February 2006 (GMT)

[edit] Plugins not listed in gconf-editor

I installed everything and ran compiz. My desktop looks like its being rendered openGL but when I go to gconf-editor, I don't see the plugin subtree under compiz. All I see is the items for specifying the plugins for allscreen and screen0. None of the hotkeys work either. Is there a fix to this? There seems to be a reference to this probelm here;

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=739758

• Are you sure you started compiz with "gconf" as the only argument to compiz, e.g. "LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/that/path compiz gconf" ? --Kernel dan 05:28, 17 March 2006 (GMT)

[edit] Emerging compiz

There is no VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia" option for compiz. I use the nVidia binaries and VIDEO_CARDS="none" to emerge compiz.

I noticed an nvidia option when I recently upgraded to an nvidia card from an ATI, I think this is due to the change where the new nvidia drivers have been moved to /x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers and will soon replace the old seperate ebuilds. Admiral Trigger Happy 06:55, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is Alternate Install Script needed?

the instructions are a little unclear - i have followed up to 4.4 Emerging Xgl, but there is a section 4.4.1 for alternate scripts - looking at the script it emerges xgl mesa glproto again, i'm thinking if i did 4.4 upto before 4.4.1 I don't need alternate scripts, is that right or i'm missing something.. (thanks!)

[edit] Running XGL

I think the instructions on running XGL are a little unclear. It isn't obvious whether you should run Xgl while your X Server is open, or if you should "/etc/init.d/xdm stop" to kill the X server before running Xgl. If I do the latter Xgl (xgl-0.0.1_p20060327) doesn't display anything, if I run it from an xterm within X it runs nested (and works quite well), but it I run it from tty1 console while the x server is on tty7 then there is no acceleration in Xgl and all effects are slow.

Also, the compizrc and suggested changes to startx to make startxgl break if you're runningn more than two screen. I tailored it to the following, but I'm not quite sure if they work for any other configuration but my own:

compizrc

#!/bin/bash
#
# Start compiz within gnome-session
#
un=`whoami`
if [ `ps -U $un | grep Xgl | wc -l` == "1" ]; then
        LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/opengl/xorg-x11/lib/ compiz --replace gconf &
        gnome-window-decorator &
        setxkbmap -model logicdp -layout fi -variant basic
fi

And the line in startxgl

xinit $clientargs -display $display -- /usr/bin/Xgl $serverargs -ac -accel xv -accel glx:pbuffer -deferglyphs 16 &

Also, by the way, in amd64 I had to accept ~amd64 for the following packages:

dev-util/subversion                     ~amd64 
app-portage/layman                      ~amd64
x11-base/xgl                            ~amd64
media-libs/glitz                        ~amd64
media-libs/mesa                         ~amd64
dev-util/git                            ~amd64
x11-wm/compiz-quinnstorm                ~amd64
x11-libs/libwnck                        ~amd64
gnome-base/gconf                        ~amd64
x11-libs/gtk+                           ~amd64
dev-libs/glib                           ~amd64
gnome-extra/gconf-editor                ~amd64

[edit] GdmXserverTimeout=30 not working in custom.conf

Thanks to whoever added the part about it not working. I can confirm this myself. Why the guide says to add it to custom.conf rather than gdm.conf doesnt make much sense.

[edit] Markup

I made a lot of corrections. I.e. I added <code> tags on all the file paths. I also made the document use more templates. For example, there was a lot of notes that didn't use the Template:Box Note. Please format your contributions nicely. Thanks, cheers and goodbye. --80.63.213.182 12:35, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for helping to clean up this article. There were few errors in your corrections, but I'll re-read and correct them slowly. Please make sure not to capitalize the names of commands like "cgwd". That could confuse people because they're case sensitive. --JBDubbs August 5th, 2006

[edit] Screenshot cleanup

I've noticed that first screenshot, with the title "Xgl/Compiz cube with 'in' setting" have some kind... of.... ...hum... pub?! on console we can read "agn-cd2-apl.r**" wich is "Armageddon.1998.DVDRip.XviD.INTERNAL-ApL" release. Plus, mounted in /mnt/news/arma.... Please someone take a new screenshot.. --Iluminado 21:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I'll remove it for now because there the sidebar is really crowded anyway. Unfortunately, I don't have Xgl running so I can't take another "inside cube" screenshot. --Kraymer 23:12, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 3.2.1 Checkout using Layman (using depreciated commands)

Now you can add the overlay with Layman:

layman -f
layman -a portage-xgl

seems to be wrong, because

layman --help

says:

   -f, --fetch         Fetch a remote list of overlays. This option is
                       deprecated. The fetch operation will be performed by
                       default when you run sync, sync-all, or list.

I think we should write: Now you can add the overlay with Layman:

layman -S
layman -a portage-xgl

[edit] help!

in the checkout using layman it says Note check and make sure /usr/portage/local/layman/make.conf actually exists... add a comment like #layman config file i made that folder and added an empty make.conf and #layman in the file and when i ran: layman -S layman -a portage-xgl ... hecked out revision 402.

• Failed to add overlay "portage-xgl".
• Error was: Did not find a PORTDIR_OVERLAY entry in file /usr/portage/local/layman/make.conf! Did you specify the correct file?

i dont understand the help that it offers --- something about making sure the string on the right side of the entry is enclosed in double quotes?

NM

It should read add a comment like #layman to the top of the /etc/make.conf config file! What is the solution for this problem? Still getting the same error message... :-(

Solution:

The layman docs are not too helpful here. The layman/make.conf needs to have an empty PORTDIR_OVERLAY which is populated automatically after the overlay has been added:

echo 'PORTDIR_OVERLAY=""' > /usr/portage/local/layman/make.conf
layman -f -a sunrise
cat /usr/portage/local/layman/make.conf
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="
/usr/portage/local/layman/sunrise
$PORTDIR_OVERLAY
"

Presumably layman -f -a portage-xgl will create an entry of: /usr/portage/local/layman/portage-xgl

[edit] ummm what?

you should clean up the doc that says emerge xgl and mesa (i know -- xgl isnt in portage yet)

j portage # emerge --ask --verbose xgl compiz

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies emerge: there are no ebuilds to satisfy "xgl".

No, the guide is right. Make sure you've done the portage overlay steps first.

Blarson 03:57, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Something must be wrong with it. I installed the xeffects overlay exactly as specified, and I'm still getting the exact same message from emerge. Frankly, I'm disgusted at the difficulty of this whole install process. There must be a better way. 129.93.191.117 19:04, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The parent poster is of the majority of people who want Xgl without studying the article, although it may be slightly harder to maintain, a summary should be added to the article - a micro-HOWTO within this one. Users like the above can refer to the main article if they need more detail or care for reasoning behind certain actions or want to know the difference between compiz and compiz-quinstorm

--ViceVirtue 08:32, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the new compiz

the latest compiz uses git (emerge -av git) (not that i can get it to even make)

then..

git clone git://git.freedesktop.org/git/xorg/app/compiz compiz

then run ./autogen.sh

i assume you want svg...
if it says... after you run autogen

and the following optional features will be compiled:
  svg:   no
  gnome: yes
  kde:   yes

you can enable svg by running..
./autogen.sh --enable-librsvg

[edit] finally

finally got it installed

you cant get this to work (at least with ati) unless you follow the howto ati on this site! (also ~x86 in make.conf helps significantly -- because the new radeon drivers help)

if you still need screenshots: (is a nice one :) )

cube screenshot w/ kdetv/konsole

-cased

It's prefered that only individual packages recieve the ~x86 keyword - in this case, the ATI Radeon drivers - so that you don't break your system by installing unstable versions of some package you know nothing about (or anything, really)

--ViceVirtue 08:35, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Xgl is failing to compile

i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I../include -I../include -I../include -I../include -I../include -I../include -I../include -I../include -I../hw/xfree86/os-support -I../hw/xfree86/os-support/bus -I../hw/xfree86/common -DHAVE_DIX_CONFIG_H -DUSE_MMX -mmmx -msse -Winline --param inline-unit-growth=10000 --param large-function-growth=10000 -D_BSD_SOURCE -DHAS_FCHOWN -DHAS_STICKY_DIR_BIT -I../include -I../include -I../Xext -I../composite -I../damageext -I../xfixes -I../Xi -I../mi -I../miext/shadow -I../miext/damage -I../render -I../randr -I../fb -O2 -march=pentium3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -fforce-addr -frename-registers -fprefetch-loop-arrays -falign-functions=64 -MT libfbmmx_la-fbmmx.lo -MD -MP -MF .deps/libfbmmx_la-fbmmx.Tpo -c fbmmx.c  -fPIC -DPIC -o .libs/libfbmmx_la-fbmmx.o
fbmmx.c: In function `fbCompositeSrc_yv12x8888mmx':
fbmmx.c:3056: error: can't find a register in class `GENERAL_REGS' while reloading `asm'
fbmmx.c:3056: error: can't find a register in class `GENERAL_REGS' while reloading `asm'
fbmmx.c:3056: error: can't find a register in class `GENERAL_REGS' while reloading `asm'
make[1]: *** [libfbmmx_la-fbmmx.lo] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/xgl-0.0.1_pre20060928/work/xgl/fb'
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1

!!! ERROR: x11-base/xgl-0.0.1_pre20060928 failed.
Call stack:
  ebuild.sh, line 1546:   Called dyn_compile
  ebuild.sh, line 937:   Called src_compile
  ebuild.sh, line 1255:   Called x-modular_src_compile
  x-modular.eclass, line 331:   Called x-modular_src_make
  x-modular.eclass, line 326:   Called die

!!! emake failed
!!! If you need support, post the topmost build error, and the call stack if relevant.

!!! This ebuild is from an overlay: '/usr/portage/local/layman/portage-xgl'

Check your CFLAGS in make.conf CFLAGS causing this compilation error. returning to "-O2 -march=pentium3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" allowed me to compile xgl.

When configuring x11-base/xgl-0.0.1_pre20061108 I got an error that said
Failed Running aclocal !
Apparently, 0.0.1_pre20061108 uses automake version 1.10, so I had to put
>sys-devel/automake-1.9.6
in /etc/portage/package.keywords to unmask automake-1.10. I re-emerged automake and it compiled fine after that.

[edit] Article is Getting Long

Is is just me or is this article getting incredibly long? I know that parts of it have been broken up into other pages, but could it be broken down a bit more?

I'd say split (or just remove) the layman/overlay part, information on how to add an overlay to your system is not directly XGL related and should (probalby is?) described in detail somewhere else.. --Kraymer 02:50, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Not only very long, very confusing also. The whole GL documentation in this wiki is a big mess. In my opinion there's need for an X-effects mother-page, explaining what the differences are between AIGLX & XGL, Compiz & Beryl, Open & Closed Ati. In that way it's easier for users to decide if they need open or closed drivers, and how valuable it is to try getting *GL* to work, instead of reading the wrong docs and ending up with a messed system. On that page should be links to an XGL, AIGLX,Beryl,Compiz,DRI,Layman/Overlay. Just that. A one page introduction about what's posible, and what to read.

Another option is just to clean-up the mess, and refer to wiki.gentoo-xeffects.org.

Instead of continuously spamming for another site, I think I'll actually try and fix the problem by moving some of the generic stuff to another article :) --Jbdubbs 17:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

There now it's clean done and you ppl can quit whining about it :) Just take some action instead of complaining :) --Jbdubbs 01:30, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, thanks, that was indeed a major cleenup. I, however, wasn't really able to contribute yet because I didn't have a clue :) I just installed beryl two days ago and consider making changes to the wiki now that I'm not that confused any more. I think above option about making an overview article linking to other articles is the way to go. For me, the solution was to read about xeffects.org, it provided me with all I needed to get it going. At first I thought it was horribly complicated because of the wiki articles here, xeffects was quite enlightening. We should definitely refer there more. I started to change the Beryl article, not sure where to continue next.. --Kraymer 02:06, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] portag-xgl is not in layman list

Check your "layman -L" commands, or http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/overlays/layman-global.txt

note that CoffeeBuzz step down as XGL maintainer recently. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-510142.html

and, official list include xeffects now. (hanna-xgl is also included, but svn server was not working.)

so, not work "layman -a portage-xgl".

[edit] Xgl without compiz/beryl

I have Xgl with KWin + KompMgr running. It doesn't feature 3d cube, but with kompose it can look very much like Xgl + Beryl/compiz + some decorater.

Screenshot

Everything you did in that screenshot can be done without installing XGL. You're probably not even using it's features. --Jbdubbs 16:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)