Howto install Crystal Window Manager

[jcrnan]

uhm, I think I got it working, but it looks like crap, nowhere near the screenshot.. its like a 10 year ld linux or something. I think I might it might be fvwm but with no crystal thing.

[Sukarn]

I am installing it right now, but from what I have heard, you have to modify it to get it all cool-looking. Its default interface is supposed to be simple and very customisable.

[fenwik]

I got it to look nice by using nautilus as the desktop manager, but I have two problems keeping me from liking it.

Whenever I login after setting nautilus as the desktop manager, nautilus takes over, i.e. when I right click on the desktop, instead of getting the terminal, I get the nautilus desktop menu. I hope that made sense.

The second problem I have is, I can't figure out how to add more applications to the menu.

[michux]

I am installing it right now, but from what I have heard, you have to modify it to get it all cool-looking. Its default interface is supposed to be simple and very customisable.

Not quite. The default looks is a bit different, that's right. But the only thing to do to make it look like on the screenshot is to change the used Recipe from the menu and restart Crystal (that just restarts the WM, all the apps and stuff is stay).

michuk

[michux]

Whenever I login after setting nautilus as the desktop manager, nautilus takes over, i.e. when I right click on the desktop, instead of getting the terminal, I get the nautilus desktop menu. I hope that made sense.

Not sure it that's solvable. I use ROX as a desktop and file manager in Crystal and it works just as good (and way faster than Nautilus). ROX has an option to take over the mouse clicks or leave the WM handle them. Perhaps you can set Nautilus to do the same somehow...

The second problem I have is, I can't figure out how to add more applications to the menu.

Take a look at this folder: [em]~/.fvwm/Applications[/em]. It contains the list of apps to be displayed in your Applications menu. Just add more apps there and you should be at home again

Best regards,
michuk

[BLTicklemonster]

Note to self:

I think this is supposed to be all one line, try it again:

sudo apt-get install fvwm python imagemagick rox-filer\
xscreensaver trayer gksu aterm habak mpd mpc

or is it?

I have redone dapper because I thought I was "all that and a bag of chips" and tried edgy. needless to say, I'm having to redo stuff. I liked the window manager pretty much, so I'm giving it another shot. Just at the house for lunch, tried it and only had nvrm and poot or some wierd window manager, nvrm was like totally wrong! but the other one was like crystal, but missing some things (tried streamtuner and heard music but no player showed up! odd)

[BLTicklemonster]

Ah, it foo that I have to open and it looks a lot like what I used before, but it's not as polished.

Those two lines I posted above, I can't get them to work either separately or together. I have xscreensaver, imagemagick, and fvwm, why can't I get crystal, I wonder?

*edit:

Huh. on a lark, in foo, I tried the lines again, just copied and pasted, and this time in started installing. But I get this at the end:
MPD system service not installed

A problem? Not sure, I'm logging out to see if crystal is there.

*edit:
well, I still have to use foo, but this is what I remembered. whew.

[xtra2000]

I want to know how to change the session name from "foo" to "fvwm-crystal". Any ideas?

[wounded]

I've been using that since Edgy came out.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1879/snapshot2xv4.png

It's almost identical to the screenshot in the first post except that there is a taskbar at the bottom instead of iconified windows (But that may not be hard to alter if you know more about fvwm than i do at this point).

[K.Mandla]

I don't remember how I found this window manager, but I love it to death. Fast, light and has enormous potential for older hardware. I even put it on a 300Mhz Pentium II machine with a 2Mb NeoMagic video card, and I have transparent window decorations! Amazing! I didn't think it was possible outside of Beryl to get that kind of eye candy on such ancient hardware.

I use a slightly different installation method; FVWM-Crystal is in the repositories (v3.0.3, though), so I just install xorg and fvwm-crystal, then download the 3.0.4 tarball, like described in the OP. Untar and sudo make install over top the 3.0.3 you just put into place. Check to make sure the 3.0.4 version is running by opening the About dialog.

One point I did notice: There seems to be a lag on certain systems if you use the Default with ACPI recipe; I think that has something to do with the desktop indicators polling hardware that doesn't exist. (Correction: Scratch that. It's ACPI on the machine I use. I disabled it and it's fine. Unrelated to FVWM-Crystal.)

Otherwise, I think anyone with a sub-500Mhz machine will fall in love with this stuff. Who needs Beryl if you can get translucent desktop interfaces on a 300Mhz machine? (Well, maybe that's pushing it. ) Cheers!