The BigLig Thinks

... yes, Compiz. I want my eye candy! sorry, but it's this or installing Vista since I don;t have a Mac.

Add

http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/ edgy main

to sources.list, then install the key with

wget http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/root@lupine.me.uk.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

and apt-get update. Then

sudo apt-get install xserver-xgl beryl emerald-themes

to install all the stuff. Beryl seems to be new since last time; wikipedia sez it is a formal name for the Quinstorm ports of Compiz, so that's the thing for me.
After that installs, create a shell script in /usr/local/bin containing

#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/Xgl :1 -fullscreen -ac -br -accel xv:fbo -accel glx:pbuffer &
sleep 4
export DISPLAY=:1
exec gnome-session

which should start up the XGL server; chmod +x it so it can run; then make a file in /usr/share/xsession that says

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Beryl
Exec=/usr/local/bin/startxgl.sh
Icon=
Type=Application

now I have to restart and run beryl-manager; see you in a minute.