Hello, welcome to tinyTechTalk, the show that gives you bite-size nuggets of technology information.

In this episode, we'll be talking about:

Running XGL / Compiz 3d Windowing on Ubuntu Linux

This is a topic quite a few people are excited about. Novell has done some excellent work with XGL, a 3D windowing 

system that promises features similar to the enhanced Aero Glass experience that Windows Vista will provide. The 

advantages are that it is free, and it doesn't take an ultra-high end PC - in fact, it's snappier than a fresh 

install of Ubuntu. We'll be going over the steps. Feel free to follow along with the links in our shownotes.

And now, a little disclaimer: This worked in my Acer Travelmate 4501WLmi laptop with an ATI Mobility X700 running 

Ubuntu Dapper Flight 5. I'm not responsible if it kills your machine.

Time: 4 Hours
Difficulty: Moderate

1) Upgrade to Dapper.
Admit it, you didn't want to do it. But, you'll end up doing it anyway, and it works, so why wait? This is the first 

step in the Tectonic guide, and it's critical - otherwise, you can't grab the packages you need.

2) Configure an accelerated driver.
There's a bit of confusion over who needs what driver, but from what I've seen the general rule is that you want to 

switch X.ORG to use fglrx if you have a X-series or higher than 9250 Radeon. Otherwise, the open-source Radeon 

driver is your best bet. To use the radeon driver, you just need to run 'sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg'. For 

fglrx, follow the guide on the Ubuntu site. That line is in the shownotes. And NVidia users, you'll need to use the 

thread in the shownotes, but I haven't tested it, so your mileage may very.

3) Reboot, and check out what you have. At this point, X should just feel snappier - we've got no cool 3D features 

yet. It will get slowed down a bit, but it's worth it. If it doesn't work at this point, you'll want to try to 

uninstall and reinstall the fglrx driver. Failing that, hit the ubuntuforums.org video section - there are some 

great people there.

4) Download compiz packages.
This is step two in the Tectonic article. Here, the key thing is that you specify the window manager that you use, 

KDE or Gnome.

5) Create a script to invoke it
Step three of the Tectonic article is setting up this script. 

6) Bask in 3D.
Notice how alt-tab, virtual desktops, menus, and more are enhanced. If you're running Gnome, you may want to go to 

the second page of the Tectonic article and disable zoom, but beyond that, you should be set.

If you want to disable XGL, you have two options: for a temporary kill, at the login screen, click on Options and 

change the session to GNOME. It'll be disabled for that boot. To permanently disable it, just delete the script you 

made in step five (step three of the Tectonic tutorial.

And that about wraps this up. I'd like to thank Chromacode at Techtonic, Ubuntu, mlomker from the Ubuntu Forums 

(along with others who've posted in other threads about enhancements and tips.).

NVidia Driver - http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=75074
ATI Driver - http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=75378
Tectonic XGL/Compiz Tutorial - http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=916