Finally got around to installing and configuring ViewCVS , which, despite the name, can quite happily view a Subversion repo - which is what I have.

Was a little less than intuitive, I have to say, but now that I understand it all, it's quite well laid out. One central config file, nice syntax highlighting, and the thing I do like particularly is that it can create on-the-fly gzips of any directory. Nice for people to be able to download the source straight from the repo browser. Oh, and in the end, I just installed it from the debian repositories instead of from source, as the most up to date version required Subversion 1.20 or greater. I'm always pleasantly surprised by how many packages are available as .debs. Makes management much easier. 

Turns out it means the dependencies of the package have changed, and so other packages need to be installed. Can be resolved with a simple "apt-get install <package-name>". 

Easy when you know how! 

Well, it seems the first thing is that I'm going to have to rename this category - I'm no longer using XGL, but instead am using AIGLX baked into the BETA Nvidia drivers I'm running. This means there's no need for XGL or anything - just set up my xorg.conf to use AIGLX, and then I just install either Beryl or Compiz. Or in my case, both. I'm currently using Compiz because frankly it's giving me better performance than Beryl (the output below is from "glxgears -info" while running amarok and firefox):

Metacity:
6121 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1224.149 FPS
7660 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1531.864 FPS
7499 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1499.699 FPS
7548 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1509.501 FPS
6609 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1321.765 FPS
7334 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1466.784 FPS

Compiz:
4952 frames in 5.0 seconds = 990.399 FPS
5044 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1008.489 FPS
5776 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1155.102 FPS
5830 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1165.975 FPS
3637 frames in 5.0 seconds = 727.383 FPS
3230 frames in 5.0 seconds = 643.875 FPS
5300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1059.970 FPS
5739 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1147.271 FPS

Beryl:
3153 frames in 5.0 seconds = 630.463 FPS
3167 frames in 5.0 seconds = 633.395 FPS
2874 frames in 5.0 seconds = 573.958 FPS
2985 frames in 5.0 seconds = 596.847 FPS
3104 frames in 5.0 seconds = 620.749 FPS

I have to say, that I'm secretly quite happy about using Compiz because I'm not sure I agree with the Beryl fork, and my gut reaction is that the Compiz code is going to be done better and cleaner, and that Beryl may win out in the end because it has better plugins and features and more community support, but it's not necessarily the best technically.

Anyway, we'll see.

As a footnote, I've got kiba-dock running on my machine at work, and I have to say it's a joy! Completely useless, but a joy. Being able to manipulate objects that interact in ways we implicitly expect from our knowledge of the real world is something we've all trained ourselves to forget when we use computers, because computers don't work that way. Well kiba-dock does...

This isn't so much an install guide as a device support list, cos I haven't done a clean install for a few releases now - I think the last time I did an install was Breezy Badger. Since then I've just "apt-get dist-update"d .

The specs are:

 AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+ 2.0 GHz
54g Integrated 802.11b/g Wireless LAN
15.4 WXGA+ High Definition BrightView Widescreen Display
80GB Hard Drive (4200 RPM)
nVIDIA GeForce4 440 Go 64MB
512MB RAM (2 Dimms?)
DVD/CD-RW
5 in 1 Digital Reader

Support? Broadcom wireless now supported with the bcm43xx wireless driver so that NetworkManager works a treat! Mousepad works great, with the right portion being a substitute scroll wheel (didn't have to do anything in particular - this just worked since Dapper).Obviously the 3D is working fine (Quake 3 is about as good as it gets on this laptop for gaming as I'm not much of a gamer - unless you count my Spectrum emulator) and at the moment I'm trying out of the BETA Nvidia Drivers with support for compositing directly in the driver. Seems a little slower with Beryl than it was in Dapper with Compiz/XGL, but I'm sure it'll get there soon enough.

What else is there? Oh, the widescreen is supported fine (1280x800). USB Devices behave themselves - automount as necessary. Haven't tested TV-out or Dual Head for a while. Will have to do that.

Downsides: have never got the Media Card Reader working. And still no suspend because I'm using the proprietary Nvidia modules. Overall: 95% there. 

Update: 2006-10-14 - Holy Cow! Thanks to this , I now have suspend to ram working like a charm. I close the laptop lid and it suspends, I power on and I'm right back where I started in about 5 seconds. Even resumes playing in Banshee where it left off. Love it, love it, love it. I thought this just wasn't possible with proprietary Nvidia drivers - I'm just amazed and very impressed! 

Update: 2006-10-18 - And there's more... Tested out the on-the-fly TwinView capabilities of the new Nvidia Betadrivers. Works a treat, except that my TV doesn't have a good enough resolution to make it useful for working off - fine for watching videos, though. Seems to only work with Metacity, and also have to reboot afterwards as the windows mysteriously disappear... Hoping for more improvements in the upcoming Nvidia drivers.

Unfortunately it seems to move as slowly as rocks, and so I'm still unable to easily install it without going the whole hog and installing from eLiveCD . Do I have the guts to do this? I doubt it. Next week we'll see...

Update: scratch that. The edevelop ubuntu repos seem to be working nicely. I'm running e17 and loving it!