Yes ladies and gentlemen, XGL has returned, bigger, stronger and better for all of you! Now, it comes with an installer and ... YES! ...you are right... with KDE (K Desktop Environment).

Chris Smart has just released the second Live CD of Kororaa with XGL!

What is this XGL?

Some of us like using pieces of software that have great graphical user interfaces. This is often referred to as ‘eye candy’. It’s perfectly normal for anyone to like having such beautiful interfaces, with lots of special effects. This makes your work a lot more fun. If you use to read news related to the newest Linux software releases, you probably heard about XGL. XGL is an X server that runs on top of OpenGL, thus running an X server that is completely accelerated by the advanced functions which your display adapter has. After all, the advanced OpenGL acceleration isn’t used when you don’t play a game or run a piece of software that doesn’t need it, so everything is ok if those advanced features are used for displaying the desktop environment. The usage of these OpenGL functions of your display adapter is also a mean of reducing the CPU load, thus more processing resources are available for other tasks.

XGL unlocked some new possibilities, special effects, like the effect that distorts windows which are dragged, the rotating cube and much more.

There were some issues with XGL and some components of KDE; for example, it was a bit slow if you had transparency enabled and other such issues.

The previous release of the Kororaa XGL Live CD had a GNOME desktop environment and was only a live CD; this new release has more to show to the user. Those who didn’t like GNOME too much can now enjoy a KDE desktop environment. Oh, wait, not just on the new live CD, even directly from the hard drive, because Kororaa can now be installed on your hard drive just like any other distro.

Some enhancements of this new Kororaa XGL LiveCD

include:

- ArchCK 2.6.16 kernel
- ATI Drivers updated (8.23.7)
- Gnome 2.14 updated
- Installation now possible
- Intel DRI support
- KDE 3.5.2 included
- "No X" boot level
- Radeon DRI support
- SCSI / USB storage support
- Swap activation
- Switch to vesafb-tng
- Video and sound files included
- Wireless support (ipw2x, madwifi, ndiswrapper)
*Fixed Automounting
*Fixed Console switching
*Fixed Sound
*Fixed Super key

Plus lots and lots and lots of other tweaks!

Some new apps include:

- ekiga
- ftp
- grub
- gxine
- pppoe
- ppracer
- transset-df
- vlc
- xwinwrap

Ok, so this time I have tested it on my home machine with the following components:

- AMD64 Sempron 3000+ Processor
- NVIDIA 6600 GeForce 256 Mb
- 19" PHILIPS Monitor CRT

Let's check out these nice screenshots I have just made for all of you! Enjoy!

The Boot Process:


the GNOME Desktop:



The much expected KDE desktop...