A demo of a new Linux X server architecture, Xgl, has been created by Novell, which plans to incorporate Xgl into the next version of its operating system. The demo video was distributed to show the powerful UI enhancements that Xgl brings. In the first screenshot you can see how virtual screens are seperated across an animated cube and that windows moved across virtual desktops can be split. Windows exhibit some physics and therefore sway when being dragged, a rather impressive feature. Every window also has the ability to exhibit varying levels of transparency. The task switcher is much more improved. The last screenshot displays an exposeesque feature that lets you view all of the open windows on any particular virtual desktop, a vital feature as any OS X user can attest to.
Be sure to try out the x86 LiveCD based on an Xgl-enabled Kororaa Linux distribution. Hopefully, Xgl will someday make its way into an Ubuntu distribution near you. Thanks to Kyle for letting me know how great Xgl technology really is.
Switching between virtual desktops
Dragging a window
Switching amongst windows and applications
Showing off window transparencies with two video players
The expose feature
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I’m really looking forward to this. I’ve never been two fond of KDE’s visual appeal, so Xgl is definitely a welcome change. I’m assuming since this is made by Novell it will be in the version of Suse. Ah Suse with Xgl, the perfect version of Linux. :-)
WOW, great demo. thanks for sharing.
Ah you beat me to the write up. Good work. You can run XGL in Ubuntu pretty easily. Instructions are in the forums and in the wiki. I’m actually waiting for Fedora to put out AIGLX which should be great. Actually, there was a post that said Novell’s XGL will try to integrate the AIGLX improvements. Anyway, I did try the Kororaa LiveCD and was mildly impressed. The only problem I had on my laptop was the display being stuck at 1024×768. I’ll probably submit a fix for this once I am done with exams.
I’m downloading the live cd for a test run, since I don’t want to mess anything up in my current ubuntu installation (customized up the ying yang). But thanks for the intel P-man.
Word.
If both new Vista and new Linux distros will look and act like OSX, then I am pretty sure the desktop OS wars will come to an end sooner than expected…
hey this is tonyjschroeder I was just checking out this site wondering if you had any good advice for a newbie
I’m impressed it looks so nice… when it come to Ubuntu I will use it.
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