I recently updated my Kubuntu Hardy KDE from version 4.1.2, kindly offered by the kubuntu-members-kde4 from ppa.launchpad.net, to version 4.1.69 (KDE 4.2 >= 20081009) compiled by myself through the script kdesvn-build.
Well I wanted to share my pleasant surprise: IT'S FANTASTIC! the Kwin openGL effects have become perfectly smooth (and lightest than compiz) even on my ati XPRESS 200 video card, which with version 4.1.2 seemed impossible! (same system conditions and driver fglrx 8.53.4)

I just wanted to say a big thank you to the developers of KDE4.

and not to mention the improvements that are already there respect the version 4.1.2 ...

And this is what makes it all worthwhile, thank you for the positive feedback.

There's still more to come for 4.2 as well. The biggest things would be full Oxygen shadows as well as wobbling shadows, there's also a new coverswitch effect still under development.

Yeah, the effects are pretty cool, and the best thing is that they are integrated into a decent window manager (and not into that uber-hackish and ugly thing called Compiz Fusion).

blueget wrote:...they are integrated into a decent window manager (and not into that uber-hackish and ugly thing called Compiz Fusion).

That's my favorite part!

The effects are really cool, I love them. It works really well even on my laptop. The developers did a great job ^_^

blueget wrote:and the best thing is that they are integrated into a decent window manager (and not into that uber-hackish and ugly thing called Compiz Fusion).

I ran GNOME with Compiz before my conversion to KDE and I must say I really agree with that statement!

In my experience Compiz was always lagging behind, especially when resizing windows. Do I understand correctly that it's a compositing window manager overlayed on top of the default window manager (the horrible Metacity in most cases), or is it a separate manager without any ties to other window managing software?

At any rate Kwin is a breath of fresh air in that regard and in general as well. I do hope the "Present windows" effect will be worked on more in new KDE releases, I'd love to get some more window grouping views instead of the one that's available now.

mensch wrote:Do I understand correctly that it's a compositing window manager overlayed on top of the default window manager (the horrible Metacity in most cases), or is it a separate manager without any ties to other window managing software?

Compiz is a completely separate window manager and stands alone to others. There are a couple of decoration plugins that make it look integrated with Metacity and/or KWin but it's actually just faking it and doesn't have the same functionality.