Fun with OpenSuse 10.2!

openSUSE 10.2 is THE best GNU/Linux distro i have ever used. Till now, GNU/Linux was considered to be strong at the server front and somewhat lacking at the desktop front. With OpenSuse 10.2, GNU/Linux seems to have finally arrived at the desktop. It has all the essential features a normal as well as a geek user would require from an Operating System. OpenSuse 10.2 definitely gives Windows Vista a run for its money. For a complete review, check out this site: http://friendlylinux.org/2007/01/22/opensuse-102/

Some of the revolutionary features of OpenSuse 10.2 are the following:

• Simplified Installation Procedure.
• Completely redesigned and revamped Start menu with inbuilt "Beagle" desktop search.
• Latest YaST (Yet Another Setup Tool) which is powerful yet easy to use.
• Support for proprietary content like PDF, Flash and Real media.
• Mouth watering eye candy with 3D Desktop using Compiz/Xgl!
• A wide variety of games.
• Inbuilt security features and firewall.
• Excellent hardware detection.
  
• And the list goes on....

The 3D effects in OpenSuse 10.2 are awesome and use Compiz (based on OpenGL) to produce some jaw-dropping 3D effects. Here is the the Compiz definition from wikipedia:

Compiz is one of the first compositing window managers for the X Window System that is able to take advantage of OpenGL-acceleration. The integration allows it to perform compositing effects in window management, such as a minimization effect and a cube workspace.

Beryl is a fork of Compiz started by the community. Beryl has a plug-in architecture and supports a large number of plug-ins for achieving superb 3D effects like zooming, snow effects, rainfall, transparency, scaling etc. Beryl includes its own window manager Emerald.
Beryl was not included with OpenSuse 10.2, so i downloaded, installed and configured it on my system. If you want to install Beryl on your OpenSuse machine, check out this link:
http://en.opensuse.org/Beryl

Enough of the boring theory, lets have a look at some really cool 3D screen shots i took from my system:

______ Rainfall Effect ____________ 3D Desktop Cube (1)

____ 3D Desktop Cube(2)___________ 3D Movie! (1)


______ 3D Movie! (2)_________________ Hot Babes!


_____Scaling Effects (1) ___________Scaling Effects (2)


_____Scaling Effects (3) ____________ Window Effects


__Cool Application Switcher _________Transparency


___Transparent Cubes (1) _______Transparent Cubes (2)

___Transparent Cubes (3) _______Transparent Cubes (4)


___Transparent Cubes (5) _______Transparent Cubes (6)


___Transparent Cubes (7)_________ View from the top

If you are still not satisfied, wait for the videos soon...