Tweaked for your Pleasure

Compiz Fusion.

Who knows what that is? I’ll make an intro to it anyway, just in case.

Compiz Fusion is a Window Manager for Linux (specifically, for X, which most distros use anyway). But it goes beyond the features you would usually expect in a typical OS; it has an array of 3D effects which not only look awesome, but have some degree of practicality.

It is actually a merge of two similar projects called Beryl and Compiz, the latter of which was forked from Beryl after some disputes over methods used for handling of documentation, updates, etc. I believe both projects were merged about two years ago, possibly a bit less.

Just to give you an idea of what it actually does, here is a video that demonstrates some of its best effects: Compiz Fusion on Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)

If that doesn’t impress you, I don’t know what will. I am posting from a very similar setup (Ubuntu 8.10 w/ Compiz Fusion, running on a Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro), and even with music playing, IRC, MSN, a Firefox window with 4 tabs, and about 30 Compiz plugins enabled, only 628mb of my RAM is in use. That’s about 200mb less than a fresh installation of Vista Ultimate uses.

Still, the object of this post is not to flame Windows. Aside from the fact I need it for work and web dev, I actually like Windows, and have XP installed alongside Ubuntu (dual boot setup).

My intent is to deliver a Linux/Compiz Fusion tip every Wednesday of every week (hopefully), starting with installation tips. Since I’m quite new to Linux myself, I can’t guarantee any of them will be of any use to those of you who already use Linux, and as I specifically use Ubuntu, any information I give will be based on that distro or any derivations of it.

Why do you need me when you have the whole WWW, you ask? Well, there’s certainly a lot of info out there. The Ubuntu forums in particular have been a great help to me. But one thing that irritates me is that out of the many answers and explanations given, even on those forums, a lot of them are vague and assume you have experience as a Linux user already.

I hope to provide those of you who are considering a switch to Linux with some handy info to get you off on the right foot, including links to some of the best noob-friendly material I came across during my own “learning adventure” (which got pretty frustrating at times, I can tell you that much!)

That’s it for now then. Do be sure to drop by next Wednesday if you want to see how to get started.