New Live CD showcasing XGL

Try turning off smooth scrolling off and you should definitely see a boost in the scrolling rate.

Interesting that the webpagescrolling is slow, as one of the goals with composite thing, was to make stuff like quicker pdfscrolling. Properly it is just lag of support from mozilla. I guess it has to be implemented in some way...

The Open Source movement doesn't object to using proprietary software. For Open Source proponents, using proprietary software is merely less technically efficient, but in no way objectionable. That movement has no desire to pursue software freedom, so their chief concerns are developmental and pitching to business. It's no accident that both individual hackers and Open Source businesses advocate for licensing that allows proprietary derivatives (non-copylefted licenses such as the new BSD and MIT X11 license), essentially treating the business like a charity.

The Free Software movement wouldn't push aside software freedom and isn't swayed by a pursuit of popularity or technical goals. That movement is chiefly concerned with preserving software freedom for all computer users, even if it means using software that is less technically sophisticated or buggy. This ends up not being a barrier to progress (as the past 20 years have shown); when one has freedom to share and modify the software, all of the developmental issues can be worked out. Despite the lack of interest in popularity, the two Free Software licenses are the most popular—the GNU GPL and GNU LGPL—are both products of this focus on software freedom.

The two movement's aren't opponents. Members of both movements work together harmoniously. But the movements have different starting dates, different principal people behind them, and different philosophies. To completely understand why proponents of one or the other make the choices they do, it's best to know the differences between the movements.

This is the best essay I've read on this topic and I highly recommend reading it in its entirety. It's also one of the most undervalued GNU Project essays I've read.

There is nothing wrong with the open source development proccess.. What is wrong is is the hardware maker's attitudes on releasing documentation enough to make their hardware usefull to their own customers!

It's going to be next to impossible to make stable, full featured drivers on video cards if the hardware makers don't cooperate.

Beleive me when I tell you that XGL will make creating drivers EASIER, both from a closed source perspective and a open source perspective, to make effective drivers for Linux.(when you get a standalone 3d x server unlike current xglx and aiglx stuff)

When I say 'effective drivers', I mean 3d drivers.
Why?
Because the only way to get the functionality that users expect and need you have to have 3d drivers. I am not talking about eye candy here. I am talking about video games. Even fairly simple open source ones use 3d graphics, even if the gameplay is 2d. I am talking about computer aided design. 3d design and animation. All sorts of stuff.

If users can't get that through open source drivers they WILL use propriatory drivers, and if the propriatory drivers are crap in Linux then they will simply use Windows because they realy have no choice.

That and modern video cards are pretty much 3d-only anyways. 3d APIs and hardware can do 2d easily and the 2-d only acceleration stuff in video cards is very insignificant in power and size compared to the rest of the card.

There is nothing wrong with the open source development proccess.. What is wrong is is the hardware maker's attitudes on releasing documentation enough to make their hardware usefull to their own customers!

I have a Matrox G550 (not one of the later unspecced Matrox cards). It has a fine Free implementation of OpenGL and 2d drivers, and is a capable (but not spectacular) 3d card... and yet XGL will not work. Something has gone wrong, since this card despite its openness, doesn't work and doesn't look like it's going to any time soon.

If it has opengl support it will work.

It's probably very likely that it's just that none of the Novell XGL developers own a matrox card like that. It's very beta software.

Your original statement:
"When the only cards that seem to work with this technology are those with closed-source drivers, it makes you wonder if something has gone wrong in the open source development process."

Is very incorrect.

Notice that Intel and ATI r2x0 series cards with xorg/xfree drivers work correctly with it. Both are using Free drivers.
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_XGL#Prerequisites

Also notice that the only systems that support XeGL at the current time are modified Free software drivers r200 and Nvidia has been getting all pissy about the break in driver API.

Don't think that Novell is doing this to kiss the ass of the propriatory drivers people. And don't think that there is this big AIGLX versus XGL, Novell versus Redhat sort of thing. It's not.

Sure it will eventually make it easier for propriatory driver companies to support X, but it will also make it easier for free software people to support X with their drivers also and hopefully prove to Nvidia and ATI that Free 2d drivers are not enough. (nvidia does support the development of the 'nv' 2d drivers for X.org in a limited fasion)

Both are different approaches to the same problem. Both share some code with each other and both are figuring out solutions to important technical problems.

Actually there's an extension that drivers have to implement to support XGL at any reasonable speed, it allows X and GL to share pixmaps without copying. It's currently only supported in the limited subset of drivers that are listed.

You can download a torrent for the Live CD here:
http://linuxtracker.org/torrents-details.php?id=1604