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(Review) - To this day, I still have to smile when new Linux users decide to take the plunge because they want the cool looking visual effects that Beryl offers. To some limited degree, I can understand the motivation. The stunning videos on YouTube are certainly compelling to those who have never tried to use the setup themselves. Unfortunately, there are still some valid reasons for sticking with the alternatives for the time being. Let's explore some of the issues that I have found with using Beryl.
Pretty, But In Beta. Even assuming you follow the official how-to and not those half-baked tutorials you see floating around, the end result can easily be broken with the blink of an eye. Or rather, an install of a Beryl update. Yes, it's true, updating Beta software can break things, especially when it is your window manager. Because of this, I tend to keep the Beryl repositories commented out only to keep an eye out for any security reasons. Even from the stable updates, I have completely hosed X on more than one occasion. If it works and there is no compelling reason to upgrade - leave it be!
The main point here is that Beryl is very much a beta product. It really kills me to see people spend so much time to get this running when the "wow" factor wears off fairly quickly.
Web Apps Can Never Be Desktop Replacements
What Works and What Doesn't With Beryl. Since I have not tried Beryl on other distributions other than Ubuntu Edgy, the following is not to be seen as a blanket statement. With that said, you will find that some tasks are not well suited for this 3D wonderland. An example? How about anything with OpenGL! Sure, I can run Second Life while cruising around in my world of Beryl. However, the fact remains that it runs so poorly that I’m then forced to use a separate login session. Yes, even switching back to Metacity from the Beryl Manager, thus ensuring things are back to their two dimensional selves, I continue to feel the lag in my system resources when running Second Life and the like.
Then we have the word count in Open Office Write. Obviously, this is something that I use on a daily basis. Unfortunately, it only works about a third of the time (not tested with Feisty yet) when using version 2.04 of the office suite.
And finally, we have the fun of setting up your configuration wrong only to discover that you cannot get pop-up alerts for spell check and other similar items, turn up behind the main browser window. I’m not blaming Beryl on this one, but the end-user. Regardless though, it is still annoying.
Is Beryl Worth Trying? Yes, I believe that Beryl is most certainly worth trying - as a separate session and not the only one you have. I say this as I grow tired of the "running with an ATI card and my drivers don't work" crowd are far too often the bloggers you read about when bad mouthing how "difficult" Beryl is to setup.
GoodBye Windows XP Forever and Ever
In truth, Beryl is easy enough for the average Windows/Mac power user to breeze through once they understand the following.
· Get your video driver from this utility. Also consider using a NVIDIA card, if at all possible.
· Stick to a tutorial with proven success (Ubuntu Edgy). In my case, I opted to take the XGL route. You may, however, choose to try the AIGLX path instead. I personally use XGL, as I have never had a problem getting it to run - not once. If you can cut and paste with the right mouse click into a terminal window, you can do this. The only area that takes a little trial and error is the startup script. The worst that can happen here is that it does not start Beryl after you do a Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to restart X.
· Make sure you are closely following the directions. Since this is for Ubuntu, you may wish to search for another tutorial if you are looking to meet the needs of your distribution instead of Edgy.
Another thing that I fully expect to see rolling into my inbox at anytime now is a note explaining how simple Feisty has made this whole process. Perhaps this is true. I will add that based on what I have seen with Feisty, it will remain on my notebook so I can keep a watch for patches. This release, in my opinion, was the most over-hyped and bug-filled to date. You will have to really hit Technorati to see more of what I’m talking about, but Feisty is as buggy as the beta I tested a short time ago. After completely tossing into the wilds of the ubber-buggy "network-manager," anything running with Edgy supported RT2500 driver shows up, but it will not connect without a special script. Those of you who are on Feisty and need help with your RT2500 cards are welcome to e-mail me for the bash script.
Ah, but I digress. I believe that one day Beryl will prove to be a fantastic option for the casual PC user. However, until it leaves Beta, this is best left to people who have a machine that they can take some risks with. But hey, this is just one man's opinion.
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Brewster Kahle, Founder & Digital Librarian
