Step to Config XGL on SUSE 10

　　So far we have tried ThinkCentre 8183 (with Intel 865 G video card) and ThinkPad T43p/T60 (with ATI video cards). On ThinkCentre 8183 when XGL is enabled, the system is a little slow but usable. On ThinkPad T43p/T60 the performance is good. BTW: ThinkPad T41 does not work, ThinkPad T42 has not been tested but may work.

Below is the guideline to enable XGL on ThinkCentre and ThinkPad (applies to SLED/SLES 10 or above). Any questions let Lin Ming Xiang (Ming Xiang Lin/China/Contr/IBM) or me know.


STEP 1: INSTALL XGL PACKAGES (MUST)

First you need to make sure you are using the latest XGL packages. I've put the packages on server nlsdev31/incoming/yljia/xgl. To install them, do:

1. Login as root. (su if you prefer)

2. Make sure 3D acceleration of video card is enabled (should be enabled by default). To do this, go to Computer => Control Center => Hardware => Graphics Card and Monitor, check the following options:



3. Use smbclient to get the 4 RPM packages as following:
> smbclient -U storm //nlsdev31/incoming
Password: dev2004
smb:> cd yljia/xgl
smb:> prompt
smb:> mget *.rpm
smb:> q
(This is for China Lab, you can get these rpms from Hannover install instructions)

4. Install/upgrade the packages as following:
> rpm -ivh xgl-hardware-list.rpm
> rpm -ivh xgl-cvs_060522-0.13.i586.rpm
> rpm -ivh compiz-cvs_060616-1.19.i586.rpm
> rpm -ivh metacity-2.12.2-29.i586.rpm
Note: if you have installed older versions of these packages, you will get error messages. Please use -Uvh instead of -ivh to upgrade these packages. (Use e.g. rpm -qa |grep xgl to query installed packages)

5. Reboot your machine.
>reboot

6. Enable XGL. Go to Computer => Control Center => Look and Feel => Desktop Effects and enable XGL effects as following:



If you cannot enable XGL, you may need to install a video card driver, see step 2. When XGL is enabled, you will see drop shadows around popup windows, and you can use CTRL+ALT+ or CTRL+ALT+ to rotate your workspaces. It's cool.


STEP 2: INSTALL VIDEO CARD DRIVER (OPTIONAL)

Seems for Intel video cards (ThinkCentre PCs) it is not necessary to install drivers for XGL, while for ATI video cards (ThinkPad) it is necessary. To install ATI video card driver for ThinkPad, do the following:

1. Make sure you have installed make, gcc and kernel-source packages (can be installed from SUSE CDs).

2. Download latest ATI video card driver. Start smbclient as step 1 and use "get ati-driver-installer-8.29.6.run" to download it. (Or you can go to ATI web site to get a new one)

3. Install the driver.
> su
> chmod +x ati-driver-installer-8.29.6.run
> ./ati-driver-installer-8.29.6.run
Select "Generate Distibution Specific Driver Package"
Select "I Agree"
Select "SuSE Packages"
Select "SuSE/SLED10-IA32" or "SuSE/SLES10-IA32", Click Continue and when its done Click Exit
(This will generate a RPM package for you, like "fglrx_6_9_0_SLED10-8.29.6.i386.rpm")
> rpm -ivh fglrx_6_9_0_SLED10-8.29.6.i386.rpm

4. Configure and test.
> init 3
> sax2 -r -m 0=fglrx

5. Reboot your machine.
> reboot