one step closer

/me just got the Second Life Alpha to install and play on my desktop (Ubuntu !!!). Alpha Software! I soo didn't think that was going to work. I successfully got hardware 3D acceleration working by downloading the i386 kernel for Ubuntu source (instead of the generic that I mistakenly installed last week), compiling it, and then compiling the NVidia kernel interface with the new kernel. I had tried this a couple of days ago, with linux-kernel-2.6.17-10-generic, and that ish just wasn't working out....

Now I'm a hoop, skip, and a jump away from getting a XGL config finally running.... and tell me why... the damn http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/ site was down ALLL night, and now it comes up as I'm writing this post...

Installing the propietary 3D drivers is the hardest point (now conquered). NVidia & ATI half-ass the hell out of them, to simply say they have linux support, but its like they put no effort into them. I know I've had problems with NVidia drivers for Windows before as well, but their linux drivers are just ridiculous.

... I was soo about to finally jump in the bed. I've got to try this new beryl howTo real quick now to see if it pops off!

btw, for anyone looking to do the same thing, from what I understand, and read to be confirmed more often than not online, there are two alternative technologies for this, XGL & AIGLX. Even though I say "XGL" (becuase it's more commonly known as that), what I'll actually try is AIGLX with Beryl as the Compositor Manager. This combination seems to be what runs the fastest for most people experimenting around with this right now. Even though this link is to a message board thread, it cleared up what I wanted to know about the conflicting options.