Ubuntu Linux goes 3-D

[Dr Mordrid]

More screenshots....

Link....

Ubuntu goes 3-D

IMAX theaters needed

Published Tuesday 16th October 2007 19:50 GMT

The folks at Canonical have started to prepare their servers for downloads of the latest Ubuntu release - 7.10 or "Gutsy Gibbon."

Past Ubuntu releases have been marred by downed servers, as the Umbongo faithful rush to get their fresh code injection. So, this time around, Mark Shuttleworth and crew are doing their outreach early. They've started talking up the OS before it's available on Thursday, hoping to spread out demand a bit.

With 7.10, Umbongo users will find fresh additions for the client and the server.

Most notably for the client crowd is the production version of Compiz. This software gives Ubuntu some 3-D graphics that by our account surpass anything seen on Windows or Mac OS X. We've run Compiz in beta for several weeks now with no problems and expect users will enjoy the production version.

It's mostly eye candy to be sure, although the Compiz code serves a larger purpose. It adds a contemporary feel to the often 1990s looking Linux desktop. In addition, it shows that the open source development model can out pace the big boys with style when needed.

On the more practical front, users will find the Tracker tool for indexing files on your system. This software mimics the Spotlight tool available for many moons with Mac OS X and Vista's desktop search. Basically, you're able to find any file on a system with relative ease.

"I believe we're the first (Linux) distribution to deliver that out of the box," Shuttleworth said, during a conference call with reporters.

Shuttleworth also highlighted 7.10's improved support for plug-and-play hardware such as printers. The Ubuntu update system has been tweaked to permit more hardware updates over the coming weeks, meaning that it should be just about the most up-to-date Linux OS available.

Umbongo customers will see better support for VGA projectors as well, so you just might be able to run a public demonstration of your fancy Linux rig.

Those of you dabbling with the dark side via dual boot Windows machines will enjoy the ability to read and write files on the (NTFS) Windows partition.

And the developers/Firefox fanatics can rest easy now that Canonical has permitted the automatic installation of validated browser plugins.

Serbongo Montoemgro

While Canonical enjoys its client goodwill - despite Shuttleworth's predilection for gluing wombats - it's also very focused on the server. It dished out the "first real" server release about one year ago and is hammering away at some server specific tools.

For example, there's a tool dubbed AppArmor that provides a level of isolation on server systems. Certain processes are cordoned off into their own area. "Even in the event of a compromise of that process, the attacker's ability to gain access to more information on the server or to compromise other pieces of the server is greatly limited," Shuttleworth said.

Canonical is hyping a "tickless kernel" as well that is a fine-tuned idle mode which cuts down on system power consumption.

Developers will see a fresh release of Python, along with support for OpenMP with GCC 4.2

The latest Ubuntu release will enjoy 18 months of maintenance. The next Long Term Support OS will arrive in 2008 and have three years of support on the desktop and five years on the server.
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[dZeus]

hopefully the production version won't crash on my G400, as 7.04 does (when I enable 'desktop effects'). I thought the G400 was supposed to be one of the best supported cards in linux.

[TransformX]

That's Beryl, already running it rather nicely on my FC7 over KDE.

[Dr Mordrid]

Beryl was a child of Compiz that has now been reconciled with its parent;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz

>
Since May 22, 2006 Compiz works on the standard X.Org server, by using AIGLX. Besides the Intel GMA graphics cards, AIGLX also supports using the ATI graphics cards (including R300 and R400 cards) using the open-source radeon driver which supports GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap since fall 2006.
>
On March 30, 2007 the discussions between the Beryl (a fork of Compiz) and Compiz communities have led to a merge of the two communities which results in two new software packages:

* Compiz, (also Compiz-core) which contains only the core functionality of compiz and base plugins

* Compiz Fusion, consisting of the plugins, decorators, settings tools and related applications from the Beryl and Compiz communities. Its main activity is focused in installation, configuration and additional plugins to be added to the core functionalities of Compiz.

It has been also agreed to create code review panel consisting of the best developers from each community who will see that any code included in a release package meets the highest standards and is suitable for distribution in an officially supported package.
>

http://www.ubuntu.com/

http://www.compiz.org/

[FatBastard]

I have been using 3D Desktops for 3 years now (since Fedora 5 I think). I think that the Exposé , some opacity and cube desktop switch are useful (They are also Apple's ideas ). The rest, in particular the beryl stuff, is just annoying, counter productive eye candy.
For Example ... Have you seen the "water Effect" ? 20 seconds of this thing and I'm ready to throw a punch at my screen(s). How about "Wobbly Effect"? gives me sea sickness.
I also think that merging compiz and its insane branch is a big mistake. Compiz is a pure no BS , no application level stiff OpenGL compositing windows management project.
Beryl is a hella cool project, but it mixes application level stuff and windows manager stuff, in order to achieve its desired end effect (eye candy galore).
( come to think about it, I think there is some sound reasoning for doing so. )

The very best thing Compiz had done for me, is providing me with munitions to fire at the the Mac cult insurgents at the office. picking at those lost, misguided souls is always fun for me.

[The PIT]

Apart wasting cpu cycles memory graphics gpu and memory what's the point of it???
Make I nice screen saver though.

[Kooldino]

Apart wasting cpu cycles memory graphics gpu and memory what's the point of it???

While 80% of it is rice, there are actually some useful features of it. For instance, you can do an expose type of thing on it.

[Kooldino]

ugh...stupid geforce 4mx...

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=582130

[Evildead666]

Will give this a download and a whirl when i have finished preloading Jericho...

Looks really good...

[FatBastard]

Apart wasting cpu cycles memory graphics gpu and memory what's the point of it???
Make I nice screen saver though.

In principle, I agree with you, but in Compiz's defense the GPU is doing most of the heavy lifting, and most of the 3D-toy's GPU usage is peanuts in comparison to a modern game,
so its working fine.
IMHO Exposé is something that increases my productivity, and not marginally.
The only problem is that when used with 2 screens and NVIDIA'a twin view HW acceleration, the eclipse IDE is breaking its windows layout when switching between perspectives. this is unfortunate because sometimes I switch between perspectives every few seconds.

[Dr Mordrid]

Put it in their bug list.

[DGhost]

Apart wasting cpu cycles memory graphics gpu and memory what's the point of it???
Make I nice screen saver though.

as found in Vista and MacOS X...

a graphics card can do the compositing and rendering of a desktop through the 3d API's far more efficently and with a higher level of performance than using CPU. There are a lot of benefits that come with it - like being able to redraw non responsive windows with cached data, being able to force redraws exclusively on VSYNC and eliminate window tearing, being able to adjust the desktop resolution and the render resolution independantly to take advantage of higher DPI displays, being able to do live previews and map rendered windows to different surfaces, allows for new methods of interacting with video overlays that is not based on the traditional hardware overlay method, etc etc.

it really does not waste many CPU cycles or much memory.

as a point, a 1280x1024x32 bit desktop uses 5megabytes to render. add in a back buffer and it's up to 10mb. now then, through a 3d API the CPU preloads as much data as it can into the video card memory, so you're gonna be facing slightly more than that for the static objects (the desktop wallpaper, etc). and then you wind up with the individual windows which are rendered by the application and mapped in as a texture.

in reality, the total memory usage is quite low. considering that you can buy a 256mb PCI video card for $50 on newegg, the 24 or so mb that it takes to render a primary desktop is pretty weak. plus, it can easily be dropped from memory if that space is required by another application. the primary framebuffer would be used either way, and just about every 3d application keeps at least one back buffer if not two. the rest of the memory usage falls under texture memory and can very easily be dumped during a context switch. in fact, I believe one of the major features of WDDM and DX 10 was allowing much better memory management of the video card's memory, enabling features similar to what is found in a normal virtual memory manager.

as far as processing power... consider this... in XP, the entire desktop is composited and rendered primarily using the host processor. the compositing engine calls each window, tells it to render to the buffer, and takes a bunch of raw data and a series of GDI commands and hashes it together with some hardware acceleration in the graphics cards in order to produce the desktop image.

with the new system, all the host processor does is assist in rendering each client window. it can then upload that image to the video card as a texture, call a relatively small number of commands to render the desktop to the back buffer on the graphics card, and then tell it to swap buffers. thanks to fun tricks like the ability for a AGP and PCIe cards to address non-local memory (or your system memory) it really cuts down on the processor overhead incurred by it. and because of pixel shaders, you can implement filters and change the final output while incuring little to no processor overhead.

it does, however, put a hefty burden on the graphics card and system in general in terms of bandwidth used by it. because it is refreshing so frequently and it is moving larger amounts of data when it does, it kinda sucks it up a bit more.

I would be curious to know how optimized drivers are for UMA platforms. I know Microsoft put a lot of effort into ensuring correct operations on UMA architectures, but I would be extremely curious if there are any benefits that stem from it.