Want to get cool visual effects in Feisty right off the bat? It’s easy.
To enable basic effects (compiz) go to System -> Preferences -> Desktop Effects.
From there, click the Enable Desktop Effects button and check off what you’d like.
Now you’ve got some basic desktop effects, like window wobble.
Installing Beryl itself after this is fairly easy.
We’re going to edit your sources.list file, which tells Ubuntu where to get it’s programs and updates.
Warning: Be sure that your quotes are correct! If you’re cutting and pasting I’d recommend you double check that all of your quotation marks in your xorg.conf file are ” standard close quotes and NOT open quotes.
In your terminal session type (or cut and paste):
gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
Add this to the bottom:
#Beryl stuff
deb http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/ feisty main
deb-src http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org feisty main
Now save your sources.list file. Head back to your terminal and we’ll get the key so we can safely and securly download Beryl stuff. Type this:
wget http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/root@lupine.me.uk.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
We’ve got to do a little more hacking now. This time we’ll modify our xorg.conf file. This is the file that drives your display settings. Back in your terminal type:
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak
gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Find the section labelled “Module” and make sure these three items are there. You’ll probably have the dri and glx entries but double check.
Load “dri”
Load “dbe”
Load “glx”
Now skip down to where it says “Device”. This will have some info about your graphics card. Add this line to this section just below “BusID”
Option “XAANoOffscreenPixmaps”
One more thing to change. Skip down to the very bottom and make sure these lines are present. If they’re not there, paste them in.
Section “DRI”
Mode 0666
EndSectionSection “Extensions”
Option “Composite” “Enable”
EndSection
Now you’ve got to restart your xserver. That sounds hard, but really just hold down the CTRL, ALT and BKSPC keys at the same time.
Once you’ve logged back in open up a terminal session and we’re going to install Beryl and it’s theme manager, Emerald.
sudo apt-get install beryl emerald-themes
Once that finishes, it’s time to test out Beryl! Type:
beryl-manager
Beryl should now be running for you. You’ll see a new icon in your system tray, up on the right by your clock. That’s the beryl/emerald control center. In addition to this, left click on one of your open windows, like the terminal session you just typed beryl-manager into and shake it about with your mouse. Pretty cool, eh?
Now you’re going to get two ways to launch Beryl. The first is in the form of an icon you can click on to launch Beryl whenever you want it. The second will be a way to have Beryl start up automatically when you log into your computer.
Let’s make a script that will launch Beryl. This script will be used by both of the methods above. Back in your terminal session, type:
gksudo gedit /usr/bin/startberyl.sh
Now cut and paste the below script into your editor:
#!/bin/sh
beryl-manager
sleep 4
exec gnome-session
Save this and exit out of gedit. In your terminal session type the following to allow this script to be executed:
sudo chmod a+x /usr/bin/startberyl.sh
Now, to create a launcher on your desktop, right click anywhere on your desktop and choose “Create Launcher”
Leave the type as “Application“. In the Name field enter “Beryl“. In the command field enter “/usr/bin/startberyl.sh”
You can click on the Icon button and choose the Beryl icon from the default folder it will bring you too.
Click OK and you will have a Beryl launcher on your desktop. Now when you log into your Ubuntu machine you can double click this to launch Beryl.
If you want Beryl to start up automatically you can go to System -> Preferences -> Sessions.
Once there, click the Startup Programs tab and then click the Add button. Enter “/usr/bin/startberyl.sh” into the Startup Command field and click OK. The next time you log into your machine, Beryl will start automatically.
For a quick guide to Beryl keyboard shortcuts, see this article.
I’m really falling in love with Ubuntu all over again.
Technorati Tags: ubuntu, feisty fawn, beryl, compiz, desktop effects, neato
Popularity: 7% [?]
March 29th, 2007 at 9:58 am
I believe ctrl + alt + backspace is not enabled by default in Ubuntu.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Hey thmbcx,
ctrl-alt-backspaced works fine restarting GDM in my unmodified Feisty install.
AG
April 8th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Something went wrong. *rolls eyes* Go figure.
Installed Ubuntu 6.10 first, updated then upgraded to 7.04
Running on a Dell D600 w/ ATI Mobility 9000 graphics
I got down to the step to restart X server, and it didn’t come back up..
It has an error on an BIOS-like screen that says “Failed to start the X server (your graphical interface). It is likely that it is not set up correctly. Would you like to view on the X server output to diagnose the probelm?”
I say “Yes” and it tells me that I have a problem residing in the xorg.config file, parse errors on line 107 (Device section – error saying “The option keyword requires 1 or 2 quoted strings to follow it”) and line 161 (DRI section – error saying “The section keyword requires a quoted string to follow it”)
April 9th, 2007 at 7:25 am
He n00b,
If you can log into a CLI session (after going through all the X stuff) and let us know what’s on the two lines in question, we’ll take a look.
AG
April 9th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Thats the problem, cannot log back onto a CLI session. It just keeps displaying the errors about problem parsing those lines mentioned in previous post.
Can you get the beta and perform a clean install, without having to upgrade from Edgy? That might be the ticket, perhaps something fouled up from upgrade?
Curious..
April 10th, 2007 at 8:00 am
linux n00b -
If you copy/pasted the code from the website into your xorg.conf file, it replaces the quotes (“) with some weird characters. That will cause your parse error and now allow X to start up. You just have to edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and replace the weird characters with real quotes.
April 21st, 2007 at 6:53 pm
wow.. exellent, just one fix.. when you use this command “sudo apt-get install beryl emerald-themes” it just install beryl and a window manager called emerald, but it won’t install beryl-manager.. You will need to duo apart from that command this one “sudo apt-get install beryl-manager” in order to config beryl.
Thank you!
Regards.
April 25th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
This is a great guide, the only problem being what tripped up linux n00b and me. The xorg.conf needs to have [quote]string[quote]. The website has [open quote]string[close quote]. To linux quote and open quote are not the same. I ended up logging into a non-graphical terminal and using vi to track down all the problems and fix them. If you’re just setting this up now, make sure that you simply put your own straight quotes in.
-:-Mitchell
April 26th, 2007 at 7:53 am
Gar! Another WordPress gotcha MrFortissimo.
I’ve since replaced all of the open/close quotes with browser friendly double quotes. Thanks for picking that up.
Anyone know of a good WP plugin that handles this automagically?
AG
May 1st, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Thanks for this fantastic guide, I was looking for something like this after installing Feisty.
JB
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:36 pm
The problem with this tutorial and many others on the web resides in the ” that you use. Especially here:
Section “Extensions”
Option “Composite†“Enableâ€
EndSection
when you copy that the ” before composite translate into omega signs so they screw everything.
this happens three times if you follow this tutorial step by step, so please check the “
May 3rd, 2007 at 1:46 am
Ok it looks like i fell prey to the WP qoutes… how can you edit your xconf from recovery mode??
since i am not able to get into any type of gui interface
May 3rd, 2007 at 1:54 am
FYI:
when im under command line options.. and i try and open xorg.conf it tells me that “cannot open display”
any suggestions??
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:06 am
Blech. Sorry about that. I’m currently searching for a plugin that will correct this.
You can use VI or Nano to edit your files. If you’ve never used a text editor before, try Nano first as it’s a bit more intuitive.
so you’d do this:
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
This will bring your xorg.conf file up in a text editor.
AG
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:54 am
There. Hopefully wordpress will no longer muck with the quotes to give us open/closed quotes.
AG
May 5th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Thanks for the info… although that night i got really impatient and went ahead and reinstalled… only to find out i could have made a new xorg.conf file… DOH!
.
.
ahh well im learning a hell of a lot by mucking things up on my own… (same way i learned windows i guess
.
.
too bad i have an x-fi card though
Thanks again for the nano info… that im sure will come in very handy down the road, as I am sure i will break something else
BTW, love the forum!
May 9th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
i did everything, but when i run “beryl-manager’ i get all kinds of error. basically saying
Xlib: extension “GLX” missing on display “:0.0″
beryl: failed to manage screen: 0
beryl: no manageable screens found on display :0.0
what the heck does this mean?
May 10th, 2007 at 7:44 am
Hey Jester,
Can you post (or email me) your xorg.conf file? Sounds like GLX isn’t loading.
Make sure you have:
Load “dri”
Load “dbe”
Load “glx”
In your xorg.conf file (as noted in the post). Also, you may want to double check the quotes if you cut/pasted from ArsGeek. Sometimes wordpress replaces my standard quotes with Open and Closed quotes.
AG
May 20th, 2007 at 3:07 am
This is my xorg file. It looks pretty good to me. I have an Nvidia GeForce4 440.
Section “Files”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1″
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi”
# path to defoma fonts
FontPath “/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType”
EndSection
Section “Module”
Load “i2c”
Load “bitmap”
Load “ddc”
Load “dri”
Load “extmod”
Load “freetype”
Load “glx”
Load “int10″
Load “vbe”
Load “dbe”
EndSection
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Generic Keyboard”
Driver “kbd”
Option “CoreKeyboard”
Option “XkbRules” “xorg”
Option “XkbModel” “pc105″
Option “XkbLayout” “us”
EndSection
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Configured Mouse”
Driver “mouse”
Option “CorePointer”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/mice”
Option “Protocol” “ImPS/2″
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5″
Option “Emulate3Buttons” “true”
EndSection
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Synaptics Touchpad”
Driver “synaptics”
Option “SendCoreEvents” “true”
Option “Device” “/dev/psaux”
Option “Protocol” “auto-dev”
Option “HorizScrollDelta” “0″
EndSection
Section “InputDevice”
Driver “wacom”
Identifier “stylus”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/wacom”
Option “Type” “stylus”
Option “ForceDevice” “ISDV4″ # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection
Section “InputDevice”
Driver “wacom”
Identifier “eraser”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/wacom”
Option “Type” “eraser”
Option “ForceDevice” “ISDV4″ # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection
Section “InputDevice”
Driver “wacom”
Identifier “cursor”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/wacom”
Option “Type” “cursor”
Option “ForceDevice” “ISDV4″ # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection
Section “Device”
Identifier “nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 440 Go]”
Driver “nv”
BusID “PCI:1:0:0″
Option “XAANoOffscreenPixmaps”
EndSection
Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Generic Monitor”
Option “DPMS”
HorizSync 28-80
VertRefresh 43-60
EndSection
Section “Screen”
Identifier “Default Screen”
Device “nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 440 Go]”
Monitor “Generic Monitor”
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection “Display”
Depth 1
Modes “1600×1200″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 4
Modes “1600×1200″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 8
Modes “1600×1200″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 15
Modes “1600×1200″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 16
Modes “1600×1200″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes “1600×1200″
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Default Layout”
Screen “Default Screen”
InputDevice “Generic Keyboard”
InputDevice “Configured Mouse”
InputDevice “stylus” “SendCoreEvents”
InputDevice “cursor” “SendCoreEvents”
InputDevice “eraser” “SendCoreEvents”
InputDevice “Synaptics Touchpad”
EndSection
Section “DRI”
Mode 0666
EndSection
Section “Extensions”
Option “Composite” “Enable”
EndSection
May 20th, 2007 at 5:12 am
I have Nvidia. I followed the instructions to the tee. I can get beryl on my desktop that is non-Nvidia. After i run the beryl-manager, i get the icon and everything seems okay, but i can’t see anything on my desktops. If i activate the cube, i can see the caps but no desktops.
Does beryl require a minimum amount of memory or something?
May 20th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
This is what i get when i run the beryl-manager command in terminal.
root@ubuntu:~# beryl-manager
root@ubuntu:~# Xlib: extension “GLX” missing on display “:0.0″.
Xlib: extension “GLX” missing on display “:0.0″.
Xlib: extension “GLX” missing on display “:0.0″.
Error: couldn’t find RGB GLX visual
Xlib: extension “GLX” missing on display “:0.0″.
Xlib: extension “GLX” missing on display “:0.0″.
Xlib: extension “GLX” missing on display “:0.0″.
Xlib: extension “GLX” missing on display “:0.0″.
Xlib: extension “GLX” missing on display “:0.0″.
Xlib: extension “GLX” missing on display “:0.0″.
June 11th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
I too managed to nuke it and get the XORG error!!!!!!!!!!
The quotes were the problem. Thank fully some kind soul helped me on the IRC.
You should really put warnings or something for us newbies!
July 9th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Everything was well laid out except for the step- now save your source.list file- I am a complete ingrate(on a computer) and am going on courage alone and no brains-how do I save that?
also didn’t know I had to manually add the – Load “dbe” -line myself until I looked it up on another site- Besides that it would have been a very easy install-thanx
July 19th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Hi there, I really would want Beryl, but nothing seems to happen when I type the “wget (…)” command into the terminal. I press Enter, should I do something else? I managed to edit the source file. Running Ubuntu 7.04 btw
July 21st, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Hey this tutorial es cool, I have one question though, what do I do if Load “dri” is not on my list?
July 23rd, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Hey DeadZero,
Glad you found it helpful. You should manually add “dri” to your list of modules loaded.
August 5th, 2007 at 10:56 am
after I type in
“gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list”
I get the following error in a new window
“Failed to run gedit ‘/etc/apt/sources.list’ as user root.
The underlying authorization mechanism (sudo) does not allow you to run this program. Contact the system administrator.”
I am the admin. What seems to be the problem? Thank you very much. I am a novice to Ubuntu.
August 7th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
One question, and I’m posting it in a few other places so if no one knows I might get it somewhere else.
I have Beryl up and running via these instructions, but when I set it as my window manager the title bars are missing. It also happens when I load the default feisty desktop effects (Compiz). Did I miss something in the xorg.conf file or mebbe a driver problem?
Any ideas?
August 7th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
edit:
Found it in a google search some minutes later. I’m a fool. I’m using and Nvidia FX card and the key was this additional line under device:
Option “AddARGBGLXVisuals” “True”
found that on: http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2007/02/06/install-beryl-on-ubuntu-feisty-with-aiglx-for-nvidia-ubuntu-704/
Thanks for the How-To, and good luck to anyone else exploring the wonders of beryl.
=p
August 8th, 2007 at 4:45 am
Enthropy,
Thanks for posting your fix and glad you found it!
August 26th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
i just want to ask, whenever i enable desktop effects, the windows’ menu bars are disappearing, how can i fix that?
September 13th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
wow.. thanks man.. nice site. i just followed.. i didn’t have to edit the xorg.. but it work
September 13th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Heya Henry,
Glad we could help.
September 26th, 2007 at 11:57 am
I’ve been using ubuntu 7 basicly for work purposes. I wanted to spice up the boring laptop with beryl but it gets stuck here (in root):
gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
it reports:
(gksudo : 27335): gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display
Can you help this poor defenseless newbie?
September 27th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
I’ve gone though several of the guides on Ubuntu and CompizFusion and Beryl. I’ve tried all their suggestions, however, aftrer installing CompizFusion, and enabling the desktop my bars disappear. Also the effects do not work the way they should.
October 12th, 2007 at 2:17 am
Hey!!! my desktop effects won’t work… only white sreen i seen… wat should i do to enable my desktop effects…? plz help me. thx
October 15th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Thanks for the tutorial – the built-in Desktop Effects options didn’t work (they just displayed windows with no borders or titlebar or anything??). But now my Ubuntu looks like Vista with a bunch of stuff that Microsoft talked about implementing 2+ years ago!
Also, people, this tutorial works fine if you just FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS. Honestly I think a lot of the commenters on this page should have stuck with Windows.
October 29th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
[quote]gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
it reports:
(gksudo : 27335): gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display
Can you help this poor defenseless newbie?[/quote]
try ‘sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf’
or ‘sudo pico /etc/X11/xorg.conf’
Pico’s a bit of a pain, but oh well
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:51 pm
When I open The desktop effects thing, and enable it, my screen goes white and then returns and nothing changes. I am using parallels
February 20th, 2008 at 4:37 am
when i type beryl-manager in the terminal i get
Make sure you have the ‘universe’ component enabled
bash: beryl-manager: command not found
everything worked until this point.
what does this mean?
February 20th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Huskan,
Check out this article: http://www.arsgeek.com/?p=2794 That will walk you through enabling extra respositories (including the Universe repository).
Ben
March 12th, 2008 at 2:56 am
This whole thing really messed up my computer. I just was trying too get the 3d cube, would do anything, this really messed it up though.
i installed the beryl and everything okay, but now i cant change back my screen resolution, everything is huge, and ridiculous. i have 7.10, and i would really like this fixed.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
So the first step is where I failed instantly. Desktop Effects isn’t in my menu. I’m running the 64 bit build of Ubuntu Studio… *lost*
March 18th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Help!!!! It says when I type sudo apt-get install beryl emerald-themes that the packet beryl cannot be found!!!!!!!!!!!
March 18th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Did you edit your sources.conf list?
March 19th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Huskan, sometimes installing beryl doesn’t install beryl-manager. Should just be able to:
sudo apt-get install beryl-manager and it’ll start after that.
Dylan, can you be a bit more specific about what’s messed up? If it just lowered your screen resolution, you should be able to change it back in the system menu.
Ian, I’m not sure about parallels, but beryl sure didn’t like VMWare for me. It needs GLX and virtualization typically doesn’t do 3d acceleration very well. Check the max texture resolution of the virtual card. If your screen resolution is bigger than the max texture size it’ll do that. (Had a fight with a geforce4 card that was running dual monitor. Full desktop resolution was 2048×768 but the card’s max texture size was 2046×2046)
April 29th, 2008 at 12:23 am
Hi There, Sorry for being such a newbie. I’m not used to Linux and Unix based OS. But I got the new Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy heron and I wanted to try out Beryl. I tried to follow your instructions but unfortunately when I got to the xorg.conf there was no module section. I’m using an MSI S260 laptop which has an onboard video card from intel-intel 915GM. I checked the specs on the Beryl Website and they said that Beryl’s min req is an Intel 855. So I know that I have more than enough. maybe yuo can help me out. Thanks.
BTW here’s a copy of my xorg.conf
# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type “man xorg.conf” at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Generic Keyboard”
Driver “kbd”
Option “XkbRules” “xorg”
Option “XkbModel” “pc105″
Option “XkbLayout” “us”
EndSection
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Configured Mouse”
Driver “mouse”
Option “CorePointer”
EndSection
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Synaptics Touchpad”
Driver “synaptics”
Option “SendCoreEvents” “true”
Option “Device” “/dev/psaux”
Option “Protocol” “auto-dev”
Option “HorizEdgeScroll” “0″
EndSection
Section “Device”
Identifier “Configured Video Device”
EndSection
Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Configured Monitor”
EndSection
Section “Screen”
Identifier “Default Screen”
Monitor “Configured Monitor”
Device “Configured Video Device”
EndSection
Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Default Layout”
Screen “Default Screen”
InputDevice “Synaptics Touchpad”
EndSection
April 30th, 2008 at 9:47 am
I’m not sure, but I think the newest version of XWin doesn’t even need a config file anymore. Pretty sure it autodetects everything. It may work without the modules section, or you may have to add it before the input devices. This is what mine looks like:
Section “Files”
RgbPath “/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb”
Fontpath “/usr/share/X11/fonts/misc”
Fontpath “/usr/share/X11/fonts/cyrillic”
Fontpath “/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled”
Fontpath “/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled”
Fontpath “/usr/share/X11/fonts/Type1″
Fontpath “/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi”
Fontpath “/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi”
Fontpath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc”
# path to defoma fonts
Fontpath “/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType”
EndSection
Section “Module”
Load “i2c”
Load “bitmap”
Load “ddc”
Load “extmod”
Load “freetype”
Load “glx”
Load “int10″
Load “type1″
Load “vbe”
EndSection
June 21st, 2008 at 6:07 am
When i try to install the Beryl manager, everything else is ok, but it ALWAYS says that the beryl manager package is not found.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I don’t what I’ve done but it seems bad I done it all wrong and was mucking with the system files LOL.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:53 am
thank you very much for this good help.
and exuse me because i want to ask about how to install any programms on unbunto?
March 23rd, 2010 at 5:24 am
I was looking for dvr related articles, this was good – bookmarked your site!
April 29th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
$ sudo apt-get install beryl emerald-themes
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
E: Couldn’t find package beryl
Why it couldn’t find the package?
December 23rd, 2010 at 10:14 am
Hey!!! my desktop effects won’t work… only white sreen i seen… wat should i do to enable my desktop effects…? plz help me. thx
October 11th, 2011 at 5:52 am
It’s the first time I heart about desktop effects, and it’s amazing!
December 9th, 2011 at 10:57 pm
Jasa Setting Mikrotik dan Proxy Cepat