[obsolete] Compiz-Fusion Puplet for testing -- aka "W...

[floborg]

@floborg: Well we're definitely getting somewhere...

So what I did was compile the bleeding edge modules (I double checked the mach64 module as being version 2) from git and made a new dotpet (see below). So if you just install this as per usual and restart X - fingers crossed there should be wobble, but if not please do the usual wNOPdump business again. Thanks floborg.

Started up in 640x480 in 16-bit, installed the new pet, and restarted X. No wobble.

PS: All this help is appreciated. Thanks.

Here's the dump.

[tombh]

@Mycology: Googling your errors I see that people are having similar problems especially caused with Radeon 9700 cards (others too though), some have reported success with

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LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=true compiz --replace

but others haven't. Try it and let me know. I would also be interested in seeing another wNOPdump as my feeling is that DRI has somehow been disabled. When things get like this my response is usually to start again, but there's still a few more things to try...

@floborg: Okay so DRI is now active, that really is good news in itself. This means that Puppy is now able to make the most of your graphics card. So what about Compiz-Fusion? All that remains now for clues is the output of

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compiz-manager

It's very likely all that's needed is:

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SKIP_CHECKS=yes compiz-manager

PS
There was one error in Xorg.0.log:

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(EE) ATI(0): [agp] Illegal AGP Mode: 4
(WW) ATI(0): [agp] AGP failed to initialize -- falling back to PCI mode.
(WW) ATI(0): [agp] Make sure you have the agpgart kernel module loaded.

But I suspect it's not a problem as your card is probably PCI anyway? Maybe the error can be stopped by removing

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Option	  "AGPMode" "4"

from /etc/X11/xorg.conf
I'm confident though that this has nothing to do with wobbles not working.

[floborg]

@floborg: Okay so DRI is now active, that really is good news in itself. This means that Puppy is now able to make the most of your graphics card. So what about Compiz-Fusion? All that remains now for clues is the output of

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compiz-manager

It's very likely all that's needed is:

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SKIP_CHECKS=yes compiz-manager

PS
There was one error in Xorg.0.log:

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(EE) ATI(0): [agp] Illegal AGP Mode: 4
(WW) ATI(0): [agp] AGP failed to initialize -- falling back to PCI mode.
(WW) ATI(0): [agp] Make sure you have the agpgart kernel module loaded.

But I suspect it's not a problem as your card is probably PCI anyway? Maybe the error can be stopped by removing

Code: Select all

Option	  "AGPMode" "4"

from /etc/X11/xorg.conf
I'm confident though that this has nothing to do with wobbles not working.

It's not PCI. It's AGP 2x, and it's integrated. Here's what happened when I ran compiz-manager:

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sh-3.00# compiz-manager
Checking for Xgl: not present. 
Detected PCI ID for VGA: 
Checking for texture_from_pixmap: not present. 
Trying again with indirect rendering:
Checking for texture_from_pixmap: present. 
Checking for non power of two support: Not present. 
aborting and using fallback: /usr/bin/metacity 
no /usr/bin/metacity found, exiting

Here's what happened when I ran with skip checks:

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sh-3.00# SKIP_CHECKS=yes compiz-manager
Checking for Xgl: not present. 
Detected PCI ID for VGA: 
Checking for texture_from_pixmap: not present. 
Trying again with indirect rendering:
Checking for texture_from_pixmap: present. 
Checking for non power of two support: Not present. 
SKIP_CHECKS is yes, so continuing despite problems.
Checking for nVidia: not present. 
Checking for FBConfig: present. 
Checking for Xgl: not present. 
Starting emerald
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Fatal: Support for non power of two textures missing
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Error: Failed to manage screen: 0
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Fatal: No manageable screens found on display :0.0
/usr/bin/compiz-manager: line 376: /usr/bin/metacity: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/compiz-manager: line 376: exec: /usr/bin/metacity: cannot execute: No such file or directory

[tombh]

Hi floborg,

Bad news I'm afraid, it appears that your card just won't run Compiz-Fusion
It's because of this non-power-of-two support. From what I can gather graphics cards have to do a lot of maths and so try and take advantage of mathematical quirks -- such as square surface areas (ie power-of-two) being easier to manipulate. So non-power-of-two support probably refers to cards powerful enough to manipulate any sized surface areas, anyway your card and the mach64 driver don't do non-power-of-two maths.

This has led me to rethink my setup for wNOP, removing unneeded drivers and including detection and notification of unsupported cards. So at least I know where the bottom lines are now.

Thankyou very much for all your work, we pushed all the way to the limits and found a wall But at least we know it's there now!

PS. You don't have to do this but just out of interest what does

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ps | grep compiz | grep -v grep

return after those errors?

Just wondering how far compiz gets? Do the window borders disappear? Does holding ALT to drag a window work?

tom

[tombh]

Seasons Greetings,

Yesterday I had the opportunity to use a laptop that had a new enough ATI card to use the fglrx driver -- this has been the one remaining area that wNOP has failed in. I managed to install the driver and get Compiz-Fusion 'working' -- it wasn't pretty.

The point is, that in order for Compiz-Fusion to talk to its graphics card (whoever the manufacturer), one of two technologies must be running, either AIGLX or XGL. From the beginning I decided to work with AIGLX, as Puppy 3 comes with it already working perfectly. The problem is though, that ATI has only just began programming their drivers to support AIGLX! Pooh Of course, we are not restricted to running ATI cards with ATI drivers, there is also the open source radeon driver, which has, somewhat ironically, supported AIGLX for ages and in most cases outperforms the ATI drivers. However, and this is the problem, the radeon driver does not support the more recent ATI cards. So a tricky situation.

Now, my primary aim for wNOP is that it supports all the graphics cards that are capable of running Compiz-Fusion. As far as I know there is no other LiveCD distro that is able to do this 'out of the box'. I haven't tried Austrumi yet, partly because of the language barrier but also because I find it hard to believe that it does what wNOP aims to do but in 67MB! Anyway, whether wNOP is the first or not, I feel it is a very realistic goal and something that a lot of people would appreciate. Both that Puppy is such a staggering feat of innovation and that Compiz-Fusion is such an enjoyable and original way of using a desktop -- an awesome combination in my opinion.

So I was just on the verge of releasing wNOP2, I had the ISO ready and everything, but now, after seeing fglrx and AIGLX in action for myself, I feel it would be best to change direction away from AIGLX and towards XGL. This is unfortunate for reasons other than extra work (not that I mind the learning experience!) -- (1) that AIGLX is really the more advanced and complete technology (2) that ATI will be working to improve support for AIGLX, but who knows how long that might take.

I have no experience with XGL nor recompiling Xorg, so it looks like it will be a fair amount of work. I don't know enough yet but maybe it is possible to have AIGLX and XGL on one system? That'd be perfect. So, I'll see how it goes, I think it would be good if I released what I have done as wNOP1.1

Okay, hope you all get great Christmas presents,
tom

[Caneri]

Hi Thomas,

check your email...in case you see this post first.

Eric

[tombh]

wNOP version 0.2 now available -- visit the thread here.

[floborg]

PS. You don't have to do this but just out of interest what does

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ps | grep compiz | grep -v grep

return after those errors?

Just wondering how far compiz gets? Do the window borders disappear? Does holding ALT to drag a window work?

tom

After starting up, selecting Compiz from the wizard, installing the pet, and then restarting X, that grep command does nothing after neither the regular compiz-manager command nor the skip checks command. Further, the window borders disappear after running the skip checks command.

[tombh]

Thanks floborg,

Yeah doesn't appear to be any life at all then in Compiz-Fusion when you run it. That grep command just sees if it is a running process, which it appears it isn't. So I think we can safely say that CF won't run on your card, which is a shame, but we've learnt a lot. Thanks again