The BigLig Thinks

1. Copy netsupport installer to machine
2. wine setup.exe
3. . . . ?
4. Profit!

It just fricken well works! that's scary. Hmmm, I wonder if Outlook works under WINE?

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I turned everything in Beryl Adminsitrator back on and it works. At first I thought new windows still weren't being decorated, but turns ou they were being places in a raw-X style where the title bar was off the top of the screen. Turing on the Palce Windows setting does the trick.

Everything now looks highly cool and deeply beautiful; next is a nice dock to replace RocketDock that I found so helpful in Windows.


I was half considering giving up and bouncing back to XP this morning so this is a great advance.

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You'll see below that I turned off alll the options in Beryl except Cube? Well, one of those was Resize and without it you can't resize windows!
Presumably my inability to move is also a factor.

Now, some apps are loosing their window decorations when I turn Beryl on, but I feel I'm getting closer.

Also various other niggles are gone, sich as wierd effects when selecting, which I put down to some extra options in xorg.conf's Device section, that werent needed for Twinview but were recommended:

Option "RenderAccel"
Option "HWcursor"
Option "CursorShadow"
Option "CursorShadowAlpha" "32"
Option "CursorShadowXOffset" "3"
Option "CursorShadowYOffset" "3"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite"

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Well, it works, and cube even spins both monitors together. I still loose the window decorations but oddly some of the windows I already have openstill had visible decorations (but non-functioning)

Meanwhile, aMSN works great as a replacement for MSN. I'll have to try my Webcam.

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Can't think why this isn't do-able with a tool instead of having to hack xorg.conf... Anyhow, following the guide here I eventually got to these lines in the Device section. (Make sure you have the nvidia driver, not the nv one):
Option "TwinView" "True"
Option "UseEdidFreqs" "True"
Option "MetaModes" "1680x1050,1680x1050"
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP,DFP"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "DFP,DFP"
Option "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf"
Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "65"
Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "60"

Lovely. Next up is getting WINE to run netsupport, my remote control application, and finding some sort of decent mail application - I don't really like Evolution.

(OK, OK, next is starting Beryl and seeing if my new xorg.conf makes any difference!)

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Interesting... Well, Cube works, so that's a result. It's a bit flaky, so I'm going to need to adjust the settings I think - start by turning as much as possible off. I really want cube and not much else.
Main problem is that the Window decorator isn't working, so I have not title bars to my windows. Some hints are here.
As usual, I find a pile of hints. At least there is a handy toolbar applet that lets me switch metacity back on to get window borders so I don't have to keep rebooting into a non-XGL session.
Things that don;t work:
using beryl-xgl
Adding Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true" to the SCREEN section of xorg.conf.
Running gnome-settings-daemon & although this does switch me back to better fonts and icons on the close-down option of the panel, so worth doing.
Removing all but 24-bit color depths
Addidn 32 bit color depths

Back to the drawing board... Pity because now cube works a treat ;-)

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... 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.

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Well, I tried looking back over old posts, but there's a little bit of flash embedded in my blog which seems to crash firefox, which isn't good. I'm running Automatix now, which amongst other bits and pieces will install the flash plugin...

Hmm, it just said "In the rare case that x-server crashes on next reboot, please type the following command: sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf_backup_200612131446 /etc/X11/xorg.conf" which doesn't sound good... Mind you, it is replacing the video card. I'll restart and check it all works.

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I'm now running with a new laptop, a Dell D820. Since it has a real video card in it, time to have another go at Linux.

So much work goes into these, and in the short term it's wasted as I always end up back in Windows, but I do believe that it is a morally correct choice to use free software, so I guess long term it is worth it.

So, begin by resizing my 100Gb disk into a 60 for Windows and a 40 for Linux. The EXTfs driver for Windows should allow me to avoid the old headache of trying to have a FAT32 partition for sharing files.

It takes a while because gparted is convinced I have hibernated my windows, not shut it down, even though this is not true. I fix it by hibernating, coming out of hibernation, disabling hibernation, and shutting down.

One a base Ubuntu is installed, I copy over my bookmarks, install tab mix pro, and do an apt-get dist-upgrade. (Well, I use the built in synaptic, actually.)

At some point in this my mouse stops working.. just the MS Intellimouse Pro, the trackpad and nipple in the laptop are still fine. could just be coincidence, so I pop in a spare USB mouse to tide me over.

OK, now back to previous posts to see what is next. I'll probably take a shortcut and run automatix or similar to put the media codecs etc. in.

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