Friday, May 19, 2006

Howto install Compiz and Xgl on Fedora Core 5

Introduction:
Xgl is an Xserver that uses OpenGL for its drawing operations. Together with compiz, an opengl compositing and window manager, it allows for some cool desktop effects. Xgl relies on an extension to mesa, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, that is present only in CVS mesa.

Demonstration Videos:
A torrent with a collection of videos is available from: http://bdiddy.rty.ca/xgl-vids.torrent (164.8 MiB)
Here a nice video recorded by David Reveman (included in the above torrent): http://www.freedesktop.org/~davidr/xgl-demo1.xvid.avi

Hardware Prerequisites
See HARDWARE Video Card Support Under XGL on the gentoo documentation wiki.

Sofware Prerequisites

Installed 3D driver:
Follow the intructions provided in the Fedora FAQ.
Below links are for FC5.

Package list to install:
  • compiz OR compiz-quinn
  • xorg-x11-server-Xgl
  • fedora-xgl-settings
  • gset-compiz
  • xgl-hardware-list
  • glitz
  • libsvg-cairo
  • libsvg
Import RPMS GPG key:
rpm --import http://users.telenet.be/quenta/RPM-GPG-KEY-AL-CAPCOM
Install the xgl repository:
rpm -ivh http://users.telenet.be/quenta/xgl-repository-1.0-1.noarch.rpm
Install the packages:
yum install compiz xorg-x11-server-Xgl

Configure the system:

Check your system capability:

gnome-xgl-info
This command must return, it's like that:
G nVidia Corporation
1 kmod-nvidia is not installed for the kernel release 1.2111_FC5
1 -accel glx:pbuffer -accel xv

Explanation the return of gnome-xgl-info:

First line is:

CardStatus [CardName]
where CardStatus is: G(ood), B(ad), S(low), or U(nknown)

Second line is:
3DStatus [Missing or installed Packages]
where 3DStatus is 0 or 1

Third line is:
XglStatus [RecommendedOptions]
where XglStatus is 0 or 1 and RecommendedOptions is set if the hardware is detected as compatible.

Enable Xgl:
gnome-xgl-switch --enable-xgl --auto

When the script ask you for applying the modifications, say (y)es.

If xgl doesn't start, see troubleshooting links below:
On the opensuse website: http://en.opensuse.org/Xgl_Troubleshooting
On the gentoo wiki: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_XGL/Troubleshooting

Configure Compiz:
gset-compiz
gset-compiz is a very good tool to configure compiz, it was wrot by gerd kohlberger.
This software can also manage the configuration of the Quinn Storm compiz version.

28 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I had Xgl & compiz working very well with the previous packages from your repository (from last week); upgrading to the ones dated May 20 has caused compiz to stop working with the 'white screen of death' also being discussed (in french) at fedora-france.org. I have rerun all of the setup programs etc. as suggested.

I have a copy of one of the older compiz packages (1.0-2) -- but reinstalling this doesn't get things working again either. I therefore think the problem is in the other package that changed (Xgl server itself -- which was rebuilt even though the version number didn't change) but I don't have a copy of the older package to verify this and it is not online. Was something changed when this was rebuilt, e.g. the built in Mesa package?

9:34 AM  
Blogger fons said...

Well considering!

It was well an error in the mesa version.
At this time, i rebuit xgl RPM with the good version .

thx

10:41 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The new xgl build (-2) you posted still doesn't work for me, oddly. Do you still have a copy of the 8MB rpm dated May 13 you had previously posted? If you have that (or the SRPM it was built from) I'll try to verify that it still works for me and figure out what changed.

I now wonder if it was so much bigger because it was statically linked and there is some other difference in the libraries you used. glitz?

3:00 AM  
Blogger fons said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

6:27 AM  
Blogger fons said...

I think that with this version (-3) will work for you and athers too.

I knew reproduced "white screen of death", on one of my PC (just install the wrong Xgl RPM).

this version have solved the problem, for me.

I do not have a backup of these old version.
Sorry for that!

6:31 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes -- all fixed for me. Thanks so much indeed.

11:07 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi, can someone help me please.
I have all installed correctly to running xgl on my FC5 box, but when I run gnome-xgl-switch --enable-xgl --auto
I get this error:
(process:3225): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: gtype.c:2215: initialization assertion failed, use IA__g_type_init() prior to this function
....and a lote of the same error....
even my gset-compiz run and the gnome-xgl-info is correct.
I have a Dell Inspiron 6400 with a ATI X1300 video card with 3D HW enable and running correclty.
Some tips?? ideas??
thanks
Mauricio

8:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The REPO-file is missing(!). Too bad :/

1:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is this "abandonware" now, or are you going to keep improving this? It'd be great to have a stable repository for Xgl here, but that means a lot of rebuilds and improvements.

Is this person you - I hope so - or should we look elsewhere? Great job so far, though! :)

Cheers!

2:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You might want to use the XGL RPMs from http://users.telenet.be/quenta/. They are more current and there is a related thread on FedoraForums at http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=111771.

4:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

4:51 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cool thanks.

The custom.conf on my Asus P5RD2-VM Xpress 200/300 would not function until I added -fullscreen and GdmXserverTimeout=30

command=/usr/bin/Xgl :0 -ac -fullscreen -accel xv:buffer -accel glx:pbuffer

However, it is an oveclocked Intel 805d under smp kernel

12:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Qestion: Is menu in compiz and simply not in gnome-compizrc?

4:26 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

gset-compiz crashes states no plugin directory. I asume this to be ~/.gconf/apps/compiz/
that is in fact alive and well. It would have been nice, but in linux you use cli as often
as gui tools to complete a task.

9:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

rpm -ivh http://users.telenet.be/quenta/xgl-repository-1.0-1.noarch.rpm

this link in the terminal doesn't work, it said something like that there is no file, or something like that...

3:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

rpm -ivh http://users.telenet.be/quenta/xgl-repository-1.0-1.noarch.rpm

this link in the terminal doesn't work, it said something like that there is no file, or something like that...

3:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

as the previous guy just said, that rpm has been removed :(

11:52 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you have problems with gset-compiz asking for a plugins directory under x86_64, try:

ln -s /usr/lib64/compiz /usr/lib

This worked for me.

8:43 PM  
Blogger bad.robot said...

Anyone able to give me some pointers what to look into if it doesn't work that great - I get corrupted parts of the screen / black boxes over icons, effects only partially working etc. I can run Karorro live-cd no problems with full speed and effects so don't know what to look into.

I wondered if it was compiz configuration but I can't run the gset-compiz tool - I get ERROR missing plugin folder or similar.

Any hints... please... :)

7:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

KDE doesn't work. Packages are missing that are required to make KDE work with compiz.

1:16 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Use this page to get your compiz working on Fedora Core 5, works like a charm and I had it all up and working in 20 minutes.

Install compiz on Fedora Core 5

Cheers,
Ohmster

7:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

gnome-xgl-info is broken for smp kernels. it shows that no kmod installed but it is already installed. i spent several hours to find why i dont have module, but there is error in gnome-xgl-info. the names for smp kernels is blahblahSMP and for kmod - blahblah-SMP (with minus sign).

8:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Do not see anything different using fglrx Under Fedora 5 Not sure what xgl is "supposed" to be doing but once I try to run gset-compiz, its all over, box locks up. I take it part of this is due to the fact that fglrx is simply a crappy driver to start with.

8:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

1:22 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You have absolutely no idea how hard it was to get everything going for Ubuntu, so I ditched it, re-installed Fedora 6 and used the link to Nicofo's blog and it worked perfectly, first go!

Thanks to whoever found this link!

6:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

2:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

7:23 AM  
Blogger fons said...

Have remove spam messages, and close the comments because this howto is no more uptodate.

5:23 AM  

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