XGL Update
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...
