OpenGL desktop / kompmgr question

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abester · Post by **abester** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 12:34 pm

I really like to use kompmgr, its just awesome. The only disadvantage is that its behaviour is unstable playing video and particularly so when starting opengl programs, which I happen to develop among others, and as a result im leaving komp off. So my question is twofold:
1) is it possible with some simple command to turn off kompmgr and thereafter start it again? Like this in a script: close kompmgr->start 3dprogram, on end->start kompmgr again. Its a dirty workaround, but it would at least be something.
2) wouldn't it be beneficial to create a sort of X environment that uses opengl to draw to the desktop instead of using the framebuffer like it uses now? Using OGL would make transparancy a breeze, and most vid. cards these days could surely handle this fluently. After all, Micro-soft opted to use their closed propriatary api D3D for the same purpose in the newest version of their 'OS'.

Thanks!

rhinovirus · Post by **rhinovirus** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:21 pm

1) kompmgr uses the XComposite extension, which is enabled in your xorg.conf. Enabling this extension causes problems with opengl programs, the only way to turn it "on" and "off" is to edit xorg.conf and restart your X server, so your "dirty" workaround would become even dirtier having to restart your X server.

2) It's in the works, look up "xgl".

rhinovirus

abester · Post by **abester** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:58 pm

I know that about xcompmgr, but I was talking about kompmgr. I can disable/enable translucency within KDE's control center. Heck I can even just run kompmgr from command promt and it turns the eyecandy on, killing it in turn disables it again. What I specifically look for is some kind of simple KDE command or Api call that allows me to do this without manually finding its PID and killing/starting it.

As to xgl, I never heard about that. Thanks for the info

rhinovirus · Post by **rhinovirus** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 7:40 pm

Enabling XComposite in xorg.conf, doesn't actually give you any eye candy. You have to use a composite manager (xcompmgr or kompmgr) to get transparency, shadows etc. I too can turn on and off the transparency without restarting the X server, but XComposite is still enabled, and it's that which causes the problem. Hope that clears it up?

rhinovirus

abester · Post by **abester** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 9:00 pm

It makes it more puzzling, because in my xorg.cfg is
Option "Composite" "Enable"
but I have really no problem with anything (3D apps/ fullscreen 3Dapps, you name it) so long as I don't have kompmgr running. The moment I try to run just about any 3D app, even the simplest 'Hello World' opengl equivalent X crashes completely.

bgradid · Post by **bgradid** » Fri Oct 21, 2005 5:28 am

whoops
*snip*

jonaswidarsson · Post by **jonaswidarsson** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 5:30 pm

abester wrote:It makes it more puzzling, because in my xorg.cfg is
Option "Composite" "Enable"
but I have really no problem with anything (3D apps/ fullscreen 3Dapps, you name it) so long as I don't have kompmgr running. The moment I try to run just about any 3D app, even the simplest 'Hello World' opengl equivalent X crashes completely.

Hi,
So, what's the outcome of this?
I have seen the Xgl demo videos (at the bottom of http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_XGL ) and I am not really interested in the jelly stuff, but to have drop shadows working properly would be nice. It never worked well for me with the setup you speak of. (that is, it was fast and smooth but the region updating failed all the time and I was often sitting with nearly black parts of windows which X refused to repaint)

I would like to know if there is a way to run the kompmgr on Xgl directly. Otherwise, I think I'll just wait for kde 4.

Q-collective · Post by **Q-collective** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 6:55 am

Xgl still needs to work with DRI, if this is done it works on just about any hardware capable of opengl.
About the "jelly thing", this is a plugin, you can switch it off.
And kompmgr will need to be rewritten in order to make and use xgl calls, it would be a fair guess that this will be done for kde4, in the mean time the only option is using the compiz window manager.

bluescreen303 · Post by **bluescreen303** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 9:17 am

abester wrote: 1) is it possible with some simple command to turn off kompmgr and thereafter start it again? Like this in a script: close kompmgr->start 3dprogram, on end->start kompmgr again. Its a dirty workaround, but it would at least be something.

kompmgr uses DCOP which you can access from most programming APIs and from bash using:
dcop kwin KWinInterface stopKompmgr
dcop kwin KWinInterface startKompmgr

yodi · Post by **yodi** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 10:54 am

An easier solution would be that KDE allows you to set custom setting for every application. If you click on the title bar of your video playing application or other you can set the Opacity to 100% and thus removing the compositive extention from that window. This solution has worked fine for me so far.

Most people would disagree but I don't think the compositive option is ready for any hard use. It is still relatively new option and so rather unstable still. Some people though do use it on an ever day bases but I believe you would need to configure your setup around using this option.

Hope this helps...

jonaswidarsson · Post by **jonaswidarsson** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 11:09 am

yodi wrote:An easier solution would be that KDE allows you to set custom setting for every application. If you click on the title bar of your video playing application or other you can set the Opacity to 100% and thus removing the compositive extention from that window. This solution has worked fine for me so far.

Most people would disagree but I don't think the compositive option is ready for any hard use. It is still relatively new option and so rather unstable still. Some people though do use it on an ever day bases but I believe you would need to configure your setup around using this option.

Hope this helps...

I don't completely understand.
Is your post directed to my issue?

jonaswidarsson · Post by **jonaswidarsson** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 12:14 pm

Hmmm, this is interesting...

Rather than waiting for KDE4... Well... I couldn't.

I am in the process of installing The usual Xgl stuff as suggested in http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_XGL .
And when I get to the compiz step, which all posts I've read so far say is gnome only, I get this emerge -ptv list:

Code: Select all

jw local # emerge compiz -ptv


These are the packages that would be merged, in reverse order:

Calculating dependencies... done!
[ebuild  N    ] x11-wm/compiz-0.0.5_alpha20060308  USE="kde svg -gnome -switch_all_desktops" 0 kB [1]
[ebuild  NS   ]  x11-libs/qt-4.1.1  USE="cups doc gif jpeg mysql odbc opengl png zlib -accessibility -debug -examples -firebird -mng -nas -nis -postgres -sqlite -xinerama" 27,110 kB
[ebuild  N    ]  x11-libs/startup-notification-0.8  230 kB

Total size of downloads: 27,341 kB
Portage overlays:
 [1] /usr/local/xgl-coffee
jw local #

How about that?

This will be interesting.

jonaswidarsson · Post by **jonaswidarsson** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 6:28 pm

Nah...

Code: Select all

jonas@jw ~ $ DISPLAY=:1 /usr/bin/kde-window-decorator
Qt decorator is not yet ready!
jonas@jw ~ $

But I managed to get all of KDE working with gnome-window-decorator in an Xgl window except from the non visible sys tray icons. (which can be patched to work, according to the howto).
My CPU is going 100% due to a backup job right now, which gives me a big chance to try the performance.
Moving a window with the jelly switched on works just as fine as in the Xgl demo.
Resizing a window with kdevelop is awful slow. I can't exactly say why. I never see this problem when running in the other X server.

I think KDE4, which will render every widget with openGL thanks to arthur, will be really really nice.

iDeJ · Post by **iDeJ** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 9:09 pm

jonaswidarsson

how did you manage to get KDE fully working?

If i modify the gnome/xfce scripts (basicly only add startkde

) i can't start konqueror or amarok (but Konsole and some other working fine)

after playing around a bit i ended up with this script

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
echo ">Starting XGL at Display: $1"
echo "========= XGL ============"
Xgl :$1 -ac -accel xv -accel glx:pbuffer &
sleep 3
echo "======= COMPIZ ==========="
DISPLAY=:$1 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/opengl/xorg-x11/lib/ compiz --replace deco$
 sleep 3
echo "====== DECORATIONS ======="
DISPLAY=:$1 gnome-window-decorator &
# sleep 3
echo "======= KDE/small ============"
DISPLAY=:$1 kdesktop &
DISPLAY=:$1 kicker &
DISPLAY=:$1 setxkbmap -model pc105 -layout de -variant basic &
#echo "======= LOGOUT ============"
#killall Xgl
# Adding the line above,if you can't logout Gnome correctly.

which gives me a very fast loading kde-like environment wich strange behaviour

(e.g. K-Menu misses some apps (like the KDE Control Center), or the Control Center misses some options (like Show Windows from all Desktops),
everything related to Devices refuses to work to (i can't use devices in Konquror nor the Media-Applet)

exept of that it is working like a charm

OT: why do some opengl apps run (faster) (like glxgears, neverball), some only slow (quake3) and other dont (quake4, nwn)?

*edit*
nevermind, i just found out that i have the same problems in my original environment (i made a clone for expermientig with xgl)
anybody has an idea how to fix (or what could have caused this?)

jonaswidarsson · Post by **jonaswidarsson** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 9:35 pm

iDeJ wrote:jonaswidarsson

how did you manage to get KDE fully working?

I did the same as you,

Code: Select all

DISPLAY=:$1 kdesktop &
DISPLAY=:$1 kicker &

I tried konqueror from an icon in kicker, and it started. Here's a screenshot:
http://widarsson.com/xgl/works..._sort_of2.png
but that was the later test. Before I was running nautilus :
http://widarsson.com/xgl/works..._sort_of1.png

Note that I was only running Xgl in a window in my default X. Not standalone or whatever it's called.

I want to apply that systray patch on KDE from svn before I try Xgl any further.
I stopped the process because I have a problem with installing KDE from svn.
However, I just found what was wrong so I may try Xgl "for real" soon, maybe tomorrow.

jonaswidarsson · Post by **jonaswidarsson** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 9:48 pm

iDeJ wrote:which gives me a very fast loading kde-like environment wich strange behaviour
(e.g. K-Menu misses some apps (like the KDE Control Center), or the Control Center misses some options (like Show Windows from all Desktops),
everything related to Devices refuses to work to (i can't use devices in Konquror nor the Media-Applet)

I have seen something similar, but which I saw in my ordinary KDE setup (gentoo ebuilds) in the new modular X.

I opened the "kcmshell keyboard" and the dialog was empty except for the Help, Defaults, OK, Apply and Cancel buttons.
I guess this has more to do with KDE being slightly incompatible with my new Xorg 7.0 than Xgl being guilty.

OpenGL desktop / kompmgr question

OpenGL desktop / kompmgr question

corrupt text in gaim after emerge world / kde 3.5

Re: OpenGL desktop / kompmgr question