FVWM-Crystal aims to create an easy to use, eye-candy but also powerful desktop environment for Linux or other Unix-like operating systems. It uses the following programs: FVWM as a window manager and "main core", ROX-Filer as file manager (manages icons on the desktop), xterm, aterm, mrxvt or urxvt as terminal emulators, MPD or XMMS as music players (there's built-in support for controlling these programs), and several other tools for different functions, like setting a wallpaper or making screenshots. I wanted to meet the developer, Maciej Delmanowski, in order to find out more interesting stuff and secrets about his project. Please enjoy this nice interview.

M. Nestor, Softpedia: Please introduce yourself. Who are you? How old are you? What you do for a living?

Maciej Delmanowski: My name is Maciej Delmanowski and I'm currently 24. I'm working in an ISP/Internet shop as a Linux administrator and I live in Poland, Poznan.

M. Nestor, Softpedia: Please tell our users, especially the ones that don't know, what is your project FVWM-Crystal and what benefits can it bring to them.

Maciej Delmanowski: FVWM-Crystal is a set of configuration files (or, in other words, a theme) for FVWM window manager, accompanied by several shell and Python scripts which do some more complex work, like menu building. There is also built-in support for several popular Linux applications - Nautilus or ROX-Filer as a file/desktop manager and MPD, XMMS or QuodLibet as an audio player. It's meant to be a powerful replacement for popular desktop environments or other window managers.

Key features of Crystal are: enhanced support for terminal emulators (Quake-like console available on all desktops, easy access to the terminal by 1 mouse click on the desktop), over 100 keybindings provided for easy control of the desktop and windows, several preconfigured desktop layouts or "recipes" to choose from and better performance combined with nice look on lower-end machines.



M. Nestor, Softpedia: Alright, I understand that it's a window manager and that it is derived from the popular FVWM. I also understand that FVWM-Crystal tries to be more powerful than his predecessor. But desktop environments like KDE and GNOME are already very powerful at this moment and they are fighting for the first place on the Linux desktop. How do you think FVWM-Crystal can compete with these window managers?

Maciej Delmanowski: KDE and GNOME aim primary for the beginner users of the Linux operating system and they have a goal to give them a complete desktop environment, with the calculator, text editor, and so on. In my project, I tried to make a desktop for the power user and not use existing applications along the way, those which are preferred by experienced Linux users. So I didn't make another text editor or calculator, or even file manager - I just used what is available, and what I'm using on a daily basis.

For example, in Crystal there are no help dialogs or buttons, because I never used those on other desktop environments. FVWM-Crystal is focused primarily on people who know what a window is and how to use menus. Of course, I've tried to make the learning experience as easy as possible, but I never tried to make something easy to use by sacrificing some functionality.

M. Nestor, Softpedia: Sounds wonderful for an experienced user (that doesn't need all that fancy icons and effects other window managers are using) who tries to concentrate on his work. I am curious… where did the idea to create FVWM-Crystal come from?

Maciej Delmanowski: I started to use Linux in June 2001; before that, I tried some other operating systems and computers, like Atari ST/TOS, Apple Macintosh/System 7, OS/2, BeOS. Under Linux I've found the freedom to choose from many desktop environments and window managers, but after a shorter or longer period of time, I've always felt that the currently used desktop doesn't have all the functionality that I wanted. So I started thinking about making my own desktop. FVWM was a pretty obvious choice due to its wonderful configurability and speed. An inspiration for the entire initial look was a "Final Fantasy" movie where I've noticed very nice projects of transparent computer screens.

M. Nestor, Softpedia: Are you working alone on this project?

Maciej Delmanowski: I'm the maintainer, but there are some other people who helped me in creating useful scripts and codes, like Rafal Bisingier - author of the application menu generator, Grzegorz Nieweglowski - creator of the FVWM tutorial which helped me learn the basics of this wonderful WM, people from the #fvwm IRC channel on FreeNode network who are very helpful with my problems regarding FVWM and many others. And there are Crystal users who give me the ideas for new things to add to the project, thanks to them it wouldn't be the same.

M. Nestor, Softpedia: Let's talk a little about the future of FVWM-Crystal. Are you satisfied with its current features? Or are there more features coming in the near future?

Maciej Delmanowski: For me, all of the FVWM-Crystal's functionality is complete, I'm starting to have some hard time thinking about improvements which don't require the patching of FVWM itself - I'm trying to stick to the upstream version to make Crystal as easy to install on different platforms and distributions as possible. On the other hand, I've found a nice set of patches for the FVWM window manager, so I might try to implement some of those for people who use them in their configurations. These patches were written by James Koster and are available on this web page.

Of course there's always something to add, for example support for new audio players, or new applications in the application database. Crystal is growing over time, and I'm not planning to cease the development for now. Users are sending their own patches and there's plenty of room for improvement.

It's hard to tell when or even if there will be some features of the newest window managers like Compiz and Beryl implemented, because their support needs to be done on the FVWM level - not the configuration, but the source code of the window manager itself. I'm not a programmer, so I can't help with that very much... FVWM development is steady but slow, which has its pros and cons. And currently, I like the good things more, so I'm not planning to switch to another window manager (which would be somewhat difficult to accomplish due to the extreme configurability and flexibility of the current one).



M. Nestor, Softpedia: Is it a big FVWM-Crystal community out there?

Maciej Delmanowski: Hard to tell. There are plenty of places where Crystal package can be downloaded, for example the Softpedia site, or Crystal is packaged in the major distributions - I'm not sure about the numbers. I'm estimating about 3000-4000 users around the world, I'm keeping contact with some of them. As for the locations, I've heard about users in China, Peru, USA, Germany, Spain, Russia... Crystal supports localization so it can be used in native language - of course I don't know them all, so translations by other users are welcomed with open hands.

The community is not very active, probably partially because I'm not keeping active myself, due to my work and private life... But I'm planning to go back to the project's mailing list and focus my efforts there, so maybe the situation will change a bit.

The other thing that keeps the users quiet is probably the default configuration - it's really hard to find something you want to change at first sight, you need time to decide what you'd want to be removed or added. And probably, most people just like what they have as the default. Also, FVWM configuration language is not an easy thing to learn at first, so this may keep many people from releasing their own modifications.

M. Nestor, Softpedia: We should let our readers know that we had a little chat alongside the interview, and you mentioned that approximately half of the people who tried FVWM-Crystal didn't like it. Do you think you can make it somehow a little easier for beginners? I mean, at least a GUI configuration that appears when a user first enters FVWM-Crystal. KDE has something like this.

Maciej Delmanowski: Maybe "a half" was a bit exaggerated, actual proportions are like 1/7 of the people who tried Crystal, stopped using it. And for the question itself - that's one of the most questions I'm asked - will there be a GUI configuration tool for FVWM-Crystal? Personally, I don't need it; everything I need I can code in the configuration files. If someone will write it, I am willing to include his/her work in the official package. But in my point of view, this will be a very difficult task: Crystal's configuration files are handmade, so you will either have to structure them somehow (sacrificing some of the FVWM's flexibility) or generate all of them from scratch. Not that it can't be done; there's even a Python script which generates a configuration for application panels and menus, but these are structured and easy to generate.

On the other hand, I tried to eliminate the need for the "first steps" configuration GUI by making the default desktop easy to use and with good defaults - you have there a pager, a window list at the bottom, a panel with application icons, so you can just run an application and start working. You don't need to configure everything right from the very beginning, but when you will feel the need to do it.

M. Nestor, Softpedia: Yes, indeed, it's very simple and clean! I've noticed that not all the installed applications are shown in the panel with software categories. Can I add more applications to the panel? How?

Maciej Delmanowski: I didn't want to add every application installed on the system like the Debian and derivatives do (for example there are entries for various shells, C compilers, calculators, etc.), but I focused on commonly used applications, those which you frequently start. All the rest can be run from the command line. As for adding new applications to the menu - the easiest method is to make a symlink from the application you want to include into a specified directory in Crystal's configuration structure. For example, if you want to add a new web browser called "FooBar" in the web browsers section on the menu, you need to create directory '~/.fvwm-crystal/Applications/Internet/Web_browsers/' and put a symlink called "FooBar" in there.

Application database system is described in the documentation directory of the FVWM-Crystal distribution. The most important thing with configuration is that you have to resemble the directory structure of the system-wide configuration files. If you do that, your own modifications will automatically mask the defaults.

M. Nestor, Softpedia: That's great, so there is a possibility, but I really think it's hard for new users and they will run away from FVWM-Crystal. You should include some in-depth documentation on your website for new users. Don't you think this will bring you more users?

Maciej Delmanowski: Probably... That depends if they will be inclined to read the documentation. But that will probably happen when their first impression will be good. You can see that approach in Mac OS X, where each application on the initial Dock is selected by hand, not randomly. First look is very important to users.

M. Nestor, Softpedia: You think that in the future version of FVWM-Crystal you will be able to implement the KDE file manager for example? As an alternative to the existing Nautilus (from GNOME) file manager.

Maciej Delmanowski: It will be actually kdesktop, and yes, I'm planning on doing that. The tricky part will be including support for Crystal-based wallpaper menu, but using DCOP calls should be enough. And besides Nautilus, you can of course use ROX-Filer, which is the preferred file manager under Crystal, apart from clean desktop of course.

M. Nestor, Softpedia: Good to know! In conclusion, let's do a quick overview of what a Linux user should expect from FVWM-Crystal and, more important, what new features will come with the future versions.

Maciej Delmanowski: What's available now:

- Quick and clean desktop environment.
- Usage of already known applications like XScreenSaver, Nautilus.
- Many desktop layouts and window themes to choose from.
- Good support of the virtual terminals.

What's planned in the future:

- More applications in the database.
- Support for new audio players like Amarok, moc, probably others.
- Better support for KDE environment and applications.

Of course there will be bugfixes, small enhancements and other things which will be proposed by users. The above list covers only the next release, after that - who knows?

M. Nestor, Softpedia: Thank you so much for the interview and for your time spent with me. I wish you success in life and with your project.

Maciej Delmanowski: Thanks for giving me an occasion for explaining a few things about Crystal. Until next time.


You can download the latest version of FVWM-Crystal now from Softpedia.