Re: [gentoo-user] [Completely and totally OT] FVWM-Crystal...!!!

[Mark Knecht]

On 9/28/05, Holly Bostick <motub@××××××.nl> wrote:
> Mark Knecht schreef:
> > Hi Holly, I thought that if you liked it that much I thought I might
> > as well take a look. I've emerged it. It's running. Nice.
> >
> > It seems to start esd by default. I'd need to turn that off.
> >
> > More embedded below and at the end.
> >
> > - Mark
> >
> >
> > On 9/28/05, Holly Bostick <motub@××××××.nl> wrote:
> >
> >> I'm sitting here with my jaw on the floor.
> >>
> >
> > <SNIP>
> >
> >> I upgraded and just now booted into it, which is why I'm sitting
> >> with my jaw on the floor.
> >
> >
> > Cover it if you're still spreading germs! ;-)
> >
> >> It works...!
> >>
> >> It's gorgeous...!
> >
> >
> > It's now running on my AMD64 machine and it is quite pretty.
> >
> >
> >> The new site is up, and it's in English...! (no docs yet, though,
> >> as far as I saw.)
> >>
> >> I changed my layout to dock (which looks a lot like XFCE, but all
> >> transparent), and when I click on one of the icons-- let's say the
> >> OO.o icon, a menu that actually has all my word processing programs
> >> appears! The Firefox icon menu shows all my 'interact with the web'
> >> apps, and the thunderbird icon menu has all my 'communicate with
> >> others' programs.
> >>
> >> OK, maybe not quite all of them, but almost. More than enough to
> >> get along with and give me some choice (I have multiple
> >> alternatives applications for some types of usage situations), and
> >> enough to see that 1) both KDE and GNOME menu listings are being
> >> read, and 2) applications are being recognized and sorted
> >> reasonably appropriately. I probably will want to customize it a
> >> bit further, but on the whole, I would say it JustWorks-- it's
> >> certainly useable for me, as is, out of the box. Which is
> >> unbelievable, for any variant of FVWM, imo.
> >
> >
> > I don't quite see this part. Maybe I haven't found them yet. It's
> > only been runnign 10 minutes or so.
>
> Use the diamond icon in the upper right corner to get the menu, then
>
> Preferences=>Used Recipe ("layouts" are now called "Recipes") and choose
> "Dock". Avoid "Clean Vertical", as that seems to only use a pager, no
> menu, no panel, no taskbar-- and I had to edit a config file to change
> recipes again, since I haven't configured for "just a term" setup, and I
> don't know what term-based commands I have available to control this setup.

OK, thanks. I selected Dock. It wants me to restart. Can I do this
within FVWM without exiting? I think I could in fluxbox. Right now I'm
running a very, very  successful audio experiment. Been running Jack
for about an hour. I have Aqualung hooked up and playing audio from a
1394 drive. At the same time I'm running xine and playing 'Panic
Room'. So far not a single xrun in Jack, at least at 11mS. This has
been a big problem for me in Gnome on AMD64. FVWM looks like it might
be a better audio environment for me on this box.

>
> I also changed the button layout to Windows-style-- one thing I never
> liked about Crystal was that you can't click the close button and just
> close the stupid program (without reconfiguring), and having to go
> through that ^%$#% menu to 'Iconify Close Destroy' was making me nuts.

I chose this also. I'm still having some trouble with raising windows
to the top. I like to click anywhere within a window and it comes to
the top. Also I like to use Alt-Tab to rotate. It seems to work most
of the time but not always, at least so far. Minor annoyance as it's
probably fixable.

>
> >
> > One thing I do not see is my special little application drawers I had
> >  on my Gnome panel. Not a biggie...
>
> I would imagine that you can create them if the provided drawers are not
> sufficient-- this is, after all, still FVWM. I just don't know how to do
> it yet, but the config seems like it might be more manageable than
> 'regular' FVWM, if the one file I've looked at is any indication.
> >
> > There were some setup instructions at the very end:
> >
> > * * After installation, execute following commands: *  $ cp -r
> > /usr/share/fvwm-crystal/addons/Xresources ~/.Xresources *  $ cp -r
> > /usr/share/fvwm-crystal/addons/Xsession ~/.xinitrc * * Authors of
> > fvwm-crystal recommend also installing * the following applications:
> >  *  app-admin/gkrellm *  app-misc/rox *  media-gfx/scrot *
> > x11-misc/xlockmore *  x11-misc/xpad *  x11-misc/xscreensaver *
> > x11-terms/aterm *
> >
> > How much of this did you do? I've done none and it's running.
>
> I didn't do any either-- I didn't even notice it, so thanks for the
> heads-up. I probably do want at least to copy .Xresources. Most of these
> applications I already have installed, and the ones I don't, I don't
> want. I actually don't want a couple of the ones I do have installed,
> notably rox, which I cannot find it in me to like. I will have a look at
> scrot, though-- don't know what it is, but media-gfx programs always
> bear further examination.

Yeah, I'll look at these later myself.

> >
> > Quite nice.
>
> I went back by the site, and it looks like its the same developer, he's
> just rewritten everything. His time has been well-spent. I'll have to
> drop him a note.
>
> Holly

Send it from both of us. I'm certainly impressed. There are some
configuration issues I'd need to conquer. I'm having a hell of a time
resizing terminals. Seems that the lower right corner is too small to
grab easily. I'd like the terminal to be transparent by default. I
need to learn how to set up all my audio apps - Aqualung, Ardour,
QJackCtl, LinuxSampler, etc., but that will come if I stick with it.

So far a nice step forward at least on my AMD64 machine currently
running ck-sources in 64-bit mode.

Cheers,
Mark

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