Hi Aurélien,
thanks for working on this FAQ. A couple comments below.
On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 12:36:10 -0000, Debian Wiki wrote:
Some window managers go farther and do some tasks of session management as well.
+
+<<Anchor(abouteffects)>>
+ ==== Does Debian support AIGLX and desktop effects? ====
+
+ AIGLX is an extension to the X server which lets clients use accelerated OpenGL functions.
+ Modern window managers like Compiz, Kwin or Mutter use AIGLX to provide desktop effects such as window transparency and shadow, window switching with previews, window maximization and minimization animations, presentation of all opened windows (a.k.a. "exposé"), presentation of all workspaces…
Not quite. They use GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, which initially was
only available with available for indirect contexts (and thus AIGLX was
needed). With DRI2 (and a graphics memory manager in the kernel), tfp
(and thus GL compositors) is also possible with direct GL contexts. So
AIGLX is no longer used in most cases.
+ The technique on composing the desktop scene from the opened windows and applying effects is known as window composition.
+
+ The X server includes AIGLX since version 7.1 and is thus supported in Debian from Lenny onwards.
+ Moreover, the graphic driver needs to support the GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap OpenGL extension for window composition to work.
GLX rather than OpenGL, but close enough I guess.
+ This is the case for most AMD/ATI and Intel graphic chips with their default Xorg drivers. nVidia users will need to install the proprietary driver.
The nouveau DRI driver should support that from wheezy onwards.
Cheers,
Julien