Christ on a cracker ... I'm not even sure what topic to stay on at this point.

However...

As I'm apparently the only truly happy Vista user in the thread, I do have to say that Compiz win the eye-candy contest IMO.

But the purpose of the Vista desktop is not eye-candy, the purpose is that each rendered window is a independent 3D object that can be loaded, unloaded, manipulated & rendered in any size or location without affecting the underlying application. The pre-Vista bitmap rendered windows are/were nowhere near as forgiving or flexible. The eve-candy in Vista is just there to entertain the "kids".

I'm still doing battle with Slackware (sound) amongst other projects, because I see value in being familiar with thing *niX ... but I'm a Windows guy with no intention of switching.

To zridling I say thank you for sharing an interesting bit of information that I enjoyed.

I've seen compiz runnnig fine on a laptop Aero refuses to run on. And compiz looks prettier to boot!

I suspect the fact that Aero needs a DirectX-9 capable card (or integrated graphics processor) it's the answer to that. Of course, that does not mean Microsoft could have programmed it for older hardware, but considering Vista was a break in many aspects of the video system compared with older Windows versions, I think it can't be helped. Besides, considering the "Vista capable" debacle, perhaps it's all for the best that things are the way they are.

As Compiz uses OpenGL, it does not have those limitations. Ah, well, the wonders of a open API.

Mmm, most distros carry Compiz, either in their repositories or installed by default. Check up its documentation, but IIRC, you should not have problems with it (you have a Radeon 2600 Pro, don't you?), well, apart from possible driver problems. I wonder how good is the new RadeonHD driver...

Yea, HD2600 Pro. I have the latest Linux drivers on my XUbuntu install, they run pretty good (the built in ones required a reformat after it corrupted the display).

Mine came with the XFE and Gnome desktop environments. Will have to Google it.

Like Lashiec, I've had good luck with drivers for my peripherals, specifically monitors, cameras, and printers (HP), and a variety of videocards, and since making the switch last October, I've never had more fun on my computer. My point in this post was what Glyn Moody suggested — if you think Vista's Aero is cool, then check out what's being done freely with open source software (Compiz) on the Linux platform. No one's arguing a switch to GNU/Linux, but just as you're aware of Apple's OS X UI, you can see what's on Linux these days (and that video was more than a year old).

I don't use my computer as a toy, but gawd, I know a lot of my friends do — gaming, social media, and youtube mainly. And their misperceptions about what GNU/Linux is are manifold among confusion with 'distros,' 'multiple desktops' (which saves me from buying that second monitor that so many invest in these days), the nature of open source, and why software must be bad if they're not paying for it. (IMO, DonationCoder.com is not about paying for software, it's about rewarding good, useful coding.)

I'm like JoTo: ...eye candy is absolutely useless... I want to work with my pc and so i prefer a fast, informational GUI without any whistles and bells. So I don't use Compiz because I don't need it. I also don't use Flip3D in Vista. But for users like JoTo, there are other, streamlined desktop environments like Xfce and Enlightenment that take up a microscopic amount of memory while providing an attractive (better than XP), efficient UI. As more software moves toward RIA, webware, and into the Cloud, you choice of OS is less relevant. All things being equal, GNU/Linux on the desktop is not part of any market, but I will get back all the money I've given companies like Microsoft for the past 22 years over time.

My intent is not to bash Windows, of course; that's a tired, flammable target that I don't have the energy for. I don't want that fight on DC, because I've become agnostic on OS choice. Use what you like, what you enjoy, what works for you. Meanwhile, I will keep posting positive, informative topics on GNU/Linux, and with the help of others, dispel the myths of open source software and open standards.

Zaine, that is the first time I've heard of enlightenment being referred to as light. From my experiences it is far from that and one of the more bulky desktop managers, more so than gnome or kde.

I disagree with Enlightenment being attractive, certain parts are, others suck hard, but it's true that it's quite light, it reminds me of LiteStep, not only for its low footprint, but also the general look.

Note that I'm not saying that XP is attractive, although some visual styles... I guess that despite the Fisher-Price or Teletubbie-esque look, it's well designed, does not get old, and it's easy on the eyes.

As a developer, let me say that as far as I know, DWM (the Vista Aero engine) is technically as good, if not better, than Compiz/Quartz. The issue, as it always is with Windows, is that most of its neat features are not enabled by default in explorer, or even available to developers. We get a measly thumbnail api which lets us generate realtime previews, but not hook into the engine to generate pretty 3D effects like Compiz.

If Microsoft had in fact made the api public, it would be trivial to have Windows emulate any desktop manager in existence. And 90% of the problems people have with Aero performance can squarely be laid at the door of driver developers (Nvidia I'm looking at you!!).

The one thing which could be improved in Aero is that the desktop is 3d-composited, but the rendering of each individual window (non WPF ones) is still 2d and is not hardware accelerated. However on modern hardware 2d rendering is basically free, unless its a game/graphics intensive app in which case they probably use DirectX anyway.

I disagree with Enlightenment being attractive, certain parts are, others suck hard, but it's true that it's quite light, it reminds me of LiteStep, not only for its low footprint, but also the general look.

e16 is relatively light, especially compared to gnome and kde today (e16 was considered heavy at the time when it was released). However their newest e17 which is and has been in pre-alpha since forever can get quite heavy, though many of the components can be disabled to make it as light as e16.

With e17 they wanted to redesign the concept of a 'window manager', and they developed a system to draw widgets/windows in a manner similar to Macromedia(or i should now say Adobe) Flash.
The new dr17 is very modular and with all features and plug-ins enabled i'm pretty sure it can be as heavy as - if not heavier than gnome.
If you're thinking of trying out dr17, you'll probably be disappointed because since they haven't even reached beta yet, it's full of bugs, random crashes, and missing functionality. It has been in development since 2000. 8 years and counting, I wonder if they can beat duke nukem forever...

Are you saying that Linux drivers are more carefully crafted ? AFAICT, Compiz runs pretty smoothly on 5 years old hardware. The same cannot be said of Aero. Aero doesn't even run that smoothly on my father's laptop, bought a few months ago. And I'm not even talking about the fancy (and sometimes tasteless) 3d effects. Just the exposé-like effects and stuff.

I was only talking about the technical capabilities of DWM. I believe Linux is lighter than Vista, and explorer in particular is dog slow, so I'm not surprised the 3d desktop experience in Linux is better. Which laptop does your father have? If its only a few months old is it Vista-certified?

And yes, its quite possible Linux drivers are better. Vista introduced (yet again) a whole new driver model (WDDM) which Nvidia and ATI haven't really embraced (partly cause its complex, but mostly cause they are lazy and incompetent). I forget the exact figure but ~80% of Vista crashes were directly caused by Nvidia drivers in the first year of Vista.

MrCrispy: remember that nvidia not only makes video drivers, but also chipset and network... those crash statistics were interesting, but afaik did not tell which nvidia drivers caused the crash. Also, it would have been interesting to see per-user frequency of the crashes - obviously nvidia has a higher percentage of crashes simply because they (afaik) has larger market share than AMD/ATi.

Afaik (hear-say, not verified!) Aero is implemented using shaders, and requiring SM2.0 - this has some requirements of the GPU and it's drivers. The newer intel integrated graphics is actually relatively capable, but still with insanely retarded drivers.

I dunno if Compiz is done with shaders or whether it uses fixed-feature OpenGL calls with a whole bunch of CPU massaging...

Which laptop does your father have?

There's a great title for a thread of its own! 

Well, flipping windows was not exactly the smoothest with the GMA X3100... But if you say that it should be smooth, I'll have to check that out. Maybe a driver problem...?