Francis Giannaros published a screencast featuring KWin’s compositioning features.
The very well made video is provided as a Flash video (Google) as well as an high quality Ogg Theora video. It shows KDE 4 from a point of view which got just to few attention the last weeks because it requires a full install or at least a well equipped machine and the Live CD. Thanks for the great video!
Francis also mentioned that the effects are all smooth on the used hardware (AMD64 3400+, 1G RAM, NVIDIA 6200) and that the effects are only slowed down in the video due to the recording process – if at all (just in case you know, video recording of compositing requires taking full shots all the time!).
Writing about hardware requirements reminds me that I am still missing a list of supported drivers/cards) for the new KWin, or the information of how KWin determines if it can run in composition mode or not. I think in the beginning there was a script which checked the driver type and decided afterwards if composition should be activated or not. But I have no idea how KWin figures that out today given that most drivers around support AIGLX (or similar approaches) these days.
December 4, 2007 at 17:44
It’s Ogg Theora, not ogg, ogg is only the container and theora is the format.
December 4, 2007 at 18:12
It was written “Ogg Video”, not ogg. With Theora being the only finalized video codec available today for Ogg containers it was pretty obvious that I meant a Theora coded video.
But just for you I added the “Theora”
December 5, 2007 at 1:43
When I first heard that KDE4 would be providing its own composite effects I was skeptical. Why not use the already proven compiz? But the results look very nice, it doesn’t look like I’ll be missing anything from compiz.
December 5, 2007 at 15:28
Hey,
the video made it to Donwload Squad. Great!
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/12/04/use-linux-desktop-effects-without-compiz-with-kde4/
December 5, 2007 at 17:27
Cool stuff!
January 2, 2008 at 16:46
[...] Composite effects – nicely done. Kwin’s Composite effects look great. Modern, not too much going on. I like that they are there but do not get up in your [...]
January 4, 2008 at 0:43
Cool effects.. I think it’s iportant that it works with compiz too though. Compiz is a great project, tested and has wide acceptance..
The two should merge code, so they’re compatible to each other…
Compiz was the reason I switched to Linux, and took 5 clients with me. There just isn’t as much eye candy on OS-X, or ‘gasp: Vista.
It’s like on a date. Guys first notice and ask a girl out because of the eye candy, but stay for the personality, intelligence, companionship, stability.
I’m glad Linux finally realized that.
January 4, 2008 at 9:57
Max, in general KDE 4 will be compatible with Compiz. The only shortcoming will be that the configuration tool of Compiz will be not embedded with systemsettings (at least not for KDE 4.0).
Btw., the comparison with dating really hits the spot, nice one