Kainaw's Journal: Compiz/Beryl

It is the end of Friday. I've spent this entire work week using Beryl (Compiz) on both my home and work computers. It is supposed to be the next great thing in desktop management. I have to admit that it looks cool. I like it when the windows wiggle as you move them around. But, I'm not going to continue using Beryl. Why?

The transparency is OK, but I'm a developer. I have one window open with requests from the clients. I have another window open with the results of my current code. I have a third window open with the code I'm working on. It is difficult to work when the windows keep turning transparent on me.

The drag/resize functions on the windows are very lagged. I know I don't have the latest and greatest video card in either computer. But, having to grab a window two or three times just to move it slows me down a lot.

I need the desktop manager in my toolbar. It shows all four of my desktops that I actively use. I can see what programs are running in each one because the icon for the program appears in the little mini-window. I can switch to each desktop with a simple click. In Beryl, I had to ctrl-alt-left mouse button-drag to spin the cube around. That requires two hands. The alternative is to collapse a window to middle mouse button-drag the desktop. That's a click and a drag. I simply don't see the benefit.

If Beryl had a replacement for the desktop manager, I would be happy with clicking it to switch. The issue appears to be that Beryl uses four screens, not one screen with four desktops. So, it is more difficult than the old desktop manager.

As for real productivity measurement, this was a very unproductive week. It took me a couple hours to get Beryl running on my home PC. I kept getting the white screen. Then, once it ran, I got a black screen when I tried to shut down. At work, it took two full days of messing with things to get it to work. Then, I had to drop my resolution down, which drastically decreased by desktop space. I tried smaller fonts, but that didn't help much. Finally, once it was running, I spent a lot of time spinning the cube around to check one window, then another, then another.

It appears that Beryl simply isn't for me. It is great to look at, but it makes tasks take longer than they do with the plain old KDE desktop.