I just used Linux for the first time today. I used a LiveCD of Ubuntu. Pretty neat. Now I'm dying to get an external hard drive to backup all my stuff before I go about putting it on my hard drive as well. Don't want to lose everything in the process of getting Linux.
Mac OS X uses a 3-D imaging system called "OpenGL" for 100% of the Quartz Extreme screen compositing engine, but it's more of a 2-D paradigm on the screen. Of course, Steve Jobs knows all about 3-D because the company he owned - Pixar - was a pioneer in the field and owns many basic patents in the field.
But Apple is not going to display windows floating in space like Beryl. The nausea-inducing Beryl user interface simply lacks good taste as a user interface. It looks like a cheesy sci-fi movie, and it does not make the user interface more productive or easier to use. The Mac OS X Expose feature is a much better way to navigate in multiple windows.
Ultimately, the biggest problem Beryl faces is that Linux lacks coherent, consistent standards for application design. It's just chaos on the screen. Linux is great for servers, but it's still lousy for desktop computer usage.
No. It's every bit as boring as the Windows desktop, only more annoying. Once all the artsy-fartsy effects are disabled, it's very nice.
Beryl's a lot of fun to use and blows the current Vista and OSX desktops away. Hopefully, the inane nature of Vista will drive a new Xnux push.
