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FVWM-Crystal 3.0.4: Speed and Transparency

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the back-in-the-day dept.

michuk writes "PolishLinux.org has published a review of FVWM-Crystal 3.0.4: "FVWM-Crystal is an eye-candy, functional and ultra-fast desktop environment for GNU/Linux and UNIX, based on FVWM. Crystal can be used even on very old machines, thus it is a noticeable alternative to popular desktop choices like XFCE or Fluxbox.""

10 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Coral Cache by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 4, Informative

    The server is melting, here's the coral cache link.

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    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  2. Oops by dreamchaser · · Score: 5, Funny

    "FVWM-Crystal is an eye-candy, functional and ultra-fast desktop environment"

    As opposed to their webserver...

  3. the 'f' was for feeble by nurb432 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Since the story comments that the developers dont remember what it stood for since its 'so old' . Geeeh. Old is not a few years..

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    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  4. Original sites! by MoogMan · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sometimes it doesn't hurt to link to the original site - or better, a pre-emptive Corel Cache of the original site !

  5. Ultra fast desktop, same old slow applications by QCompson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Every time I have experimented with a lightweight fast desktop (fluxbox, icewm, xfce, etc.), I am initially impressed at how snappy the desktop itself feels, but once I launch a few applications, I am again disappointed at the overall slow feel of the apps themselves.

    FVWM with Nautilus? When I use nautilus in another environment (window manager, whatever), it always starts slower than it does in Gnome (I know, I know, preload gnome-stuff and all that, but if you have to do that, what's the point?). Once nautilus is open, it still behaves sluggish and ackward. And it's not just nautilus. I have the same issue with konqueror, firefox, music apps, k3b, and more. A lightweight desktop is fast if I just want to login and look at your wallpaper, but once I try to get something done, I have the same old issues.

    I can't quite describe the problem, but even after the tremendous improvements that have been made to the Linux desktop in the past few years, it still feels... slow. I'm not trying to troll here. I love Linux, and I wish it all the success in the world, but it just doesn't feel as snappy to me as windows 2000/XP. Seems like lost mouse-clicks and slow window redraws are a large part of the problem. Perhaps the problem lies with X, or with my own warped sense of perception... who knows?

    1. Re:Ultra fast desktop, same old slow applications by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      From the slashdot submission:

      thus it is a noticeable alternative to popular desktop choices like XFCE or Fluxbox.

      This must be a definition of popular with which I am unfamilar

    2. Re:Ultra fast desktop, same old slow applications by MartinG · · Score: 5, Insightful

      My gut feeling is that the main cause of this may be the GTK toolkit.

      Well it just so happens that gut feeling, despite being the most popular tool, is almost totally useless when applied to performance measurement in software.

      Seriously, I solve performance issues in a range of applications on an almost daily basis as part of my job. After a few years, you stop being surprised at exactly how little correlation there is between your gut feeling of what is causing slowdown and what really is.

      Measurement is the only useful approach to performance. I've said it many times before, and many greater programmers than me said it long before that.

      A couple of quotes:

      "Measurement is a crucial component of performance improvement since reasoning and intuition are fallible guides and must be supplemented with tools like timing commands and profilers." - Kernighan and Pike

      "You cannot tell where a program is going to spend its time. Bottlenecks occur in surprising places, so do not try to second guess and put in a speed hack until you've proven that's where the bottleneck is." - Rob Pike

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      -- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz .@adgimnoprstu
  6. FVWM-Crystal is nice, but... by Darkael · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Fvwm-Crystal is really nice, it shows how powerful and flexible Fvwm can be while still being light and fast. But its main drawback is that when something goes wrong, you are screwed unless you know Fvwm very well, and this is not something easy to achieve (for those who don't know Fvwm, just look at the man page.

    Also, while we are on the subject of Fvwm, check out Metisse, a nice experimental Fvwm-based OpenGL desktop. I'm not sure if it's still actively maintened though. It would be a nice thing too if they ported it to Xgl.

  7. Desktop or Window Manager by 10Ghz · · Score: 5, Informative

    Last time I checked, FVWM was just a WM, and not a proper desktop as such.

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    Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
  8. Re: WNT by MsGeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    WNT is to VMS what HAL is to IBM. QED.

    --
    Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.