Xgl

Today Novell announced the release of Xgl and Compiz, the new window manager/composition manager to go with it. Novell has the release details here.

Videos of Xgl in action:

1. True transparency .mpg (12MB)| .ogg (3.7MB) | streaming flash
2. Zoom .mpg (8.5MB) | streaming flash
3. Desktop Organization .mpg (16MB) | .ogg (5.7MB) | streaming flash
4. Spinning Cube .mpg (16MB) | .ogg (7.1MB) | streaming flash

Stephen at CNet puts it in context in his Novell seeks to boost Linux graphics article.

Compiz is a new joint window manager and composition manager. David Reveman had to merge these into a single process to provide the kind of functionality that we wanted on the desktop.

Compiz has a plugin framework, many of the visual effects are implemented by independent plugins. We hope to see numerous plugins for new effects that plug into the existing window manager.

Now, the actual decoration rendering was split out into a separate process. Today Compiz has its own internal rendering of the window decorations which uses Cairo and an alpha channel to render its decorations.

But someone could write a Gnome/Metacity decoration renderer or a KDE decoration rendered. Both would allow existing window manager themes to integrate with Compiz.

Xgl has already been checked into the public repositories, Compiz will be checked in after David Reveman's presentation at the X conference.

Check the Novell page for details on downloading the software.