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Radically
Simple Linux for the non-geek! |
Part Six:Making PCLinuxOS Beautiful as well as Functional |
What I am about to describe is possible on a number of computer systems. If computers were capable of dreaming, these effects could run on computers that couldn't even think about running Vista in their wildest dreams. Even so, there are plenty of computers which couldn't run them, even under Linux. What I am talking about are the 3D/Compositing effects. The one I will demonstrate is Beryl, but there are others.
This screen demonstrates the "bendy-window" feature of Beryl also the Transparency feature:
As with the screenshots that follow, click on then to see them full size in a new window/tab. A lot of transparency stuff isn't just for fun, on a crowded desktop you can locate covered windows more quickly. Beryl enables you to zoom in on the desktop, useful for people with sight problems. You have to load and run Beryl to appreciate what it can do.
The next screenshot shows the rotating cube effect. As you can see, the Firefox window has wrapped around the corner.
This is not a static effect. If the window was still updating, if there were any moving graphics on it, you would see it continue to update. Note how the original wallpaper on the cube has become transparent, and another wallpaper (called a skydome) is sitting behind that. This effect is not just eye-candy, it actually encourages that you spread applications over all the windows, and makes it easy to move them and switch between them.
On the one that follows, I have set Beryl to keep "sticky" items, like the kicker panel, on the main window. You can also see how the windows stand off the desktop when it's rotated, have depth, rounded corners, and are transparent. You can see caps on the cube.
My Desktop computer is a 32-bit Athlon XP3200+ (actually an overclocked XP2500), with lowly nVidia FX5200 graphics. It has 512Mb RAM. The actual system (ie without my personal files but with all the installed programs) takes up barely over 3Gb disk space. The cube rotations are smooth. Which brings me to the last screenshot here:
Some people prefer these effects on a darker canvas, so here is another one!
Certainly Vista would struggle on my machine, yesterday I burned a 900Mb image to a DVD+RW, whilst surfing the net with Beryl running. Linux is not bloatware. You could trim off maybe 10-15Gb of your Windows partition and run Linux as a dual boot. Though 30Gb is probably better!
Don't think that Beryl is the only eye-candy in Linux. Another 3D desktop is Compiz which is very similar to Beryl. In fact, the Beryl and Compiz projects are about to merge, and the new project will be called Compiz-Fusion. It will include all the effects that are in both Compiz and Beryl, and more. As soon as this is stable enough, it will be included in the repositories at PCLinuxOS. Another take on 3D is Metisse which actually enables you to "angle" windows, that is, rather than rotate the desktop you rotate each window as if it were a slab of something, this moving it out of the way of other windows.
For those whose hardware is not up to the 3D effects, there are plenty of simpler options. An enormous choice of Window Decorations, Buttons, Icons, etc. If you visit the Monthly Screenshots section at the PCLinuxOS forums, you will see all manner of different ways you can make your desktop look good. All without losing functionality.
This is all too good to be true, right? A free, stable operating system with loads of free software, stable, immune to viruses and spyware, kernel-level firewall, easy to setup and maintain, and amazing eye-candy to boot. Fast, runs on older computers, whizzes on newer ones, less disk space for the system means more for your data. Maybe it's time to balance it out a bit. Or maybe not. See what's coming up on the next page ...
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