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Fluxbox


mysticpain
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I have used Fluxbox on my laptop for almost a year now.

 

What sort of information are you looking for? It's pretty easy to set up, and it's on your disks (urpmi fluxbox). Let me know what you want to know and I'll give you a hand.

 

Also, I moved this to Software.

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In you Applications Menu?

 

That part I don't understand. You mean when you are logging in?

 

Basically, it's another WM (Window Manager). Similar, but not as heavy as the 2 main DE's (Desktop Environments): KDE and Gnome.

 

When you Right Click anywhere, you should get your menu. This will be the same basic menu you have in KDE, except it now has a "Fluxbox" menu as well. This is where you can do all of your Theme changing, settings, exit Flux, etc.

 

Anything you want to do in any other Desktop, you can do in Fluxbox; with the notable exception of putting icons on the desktop. You can do that, but you need other software to do it.

 

The way I control Fluxbox (what programs are started, etc) is in my ~/.xinitrc file. This file is one you need if you start your GUI environment with the 'startx' command. This is the way I do it and have done for quite some time. The only thing you absolutely need in this file is the command to start the WM/DE: ex:

 exec fluxbox

 

You can put anything else in there you want to start, one per line followed by a space and an '&' sign. The last line should be to tell your WM/DE to start and it won't have the '&' sign on it.

 

That's basically how you configure Fluxbox. There are more advanced things you can do such as creating your own menu, etc. but that's way more advanced than you probably want to be when you're just starting out.

 

Another great resource for you is the documentation at the fluxbox site: http://www.fluxbox.org/docbook.php

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Anything you want to do in any other Desktop, you can do in Fluxbox; with the notable exception of putting icons on the desktop. You can do that, but you need other software to do it.

 

 

This is the one thing I don't like about fluxbox.

 

I have not used Flux in a long time but I am going to install it when I get home.

 

I have 2 questions. How do I change the task bar so it shows all open windows like KDE or gnome instead of the one that is active? (I might do this by default now, it has been a while for me)

 

How do I create Icons for the desktop? It does not matter if creating them is difficult or time consuming, since I only need to create 4 or 5 of them.

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Priest:

I don't use flux anymore, but if I'm not wrong you can right click on the taskbar and have the option of having all open application window on the taskbar.(not sure if I understood what you meant)

In order to get icons on desktop you can install "idesk" a third party application that will do this job.

Here you can see "idesk".

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idesk is good, but I could never get it to work right. fbdesk is another option for icons:

 

http://liquidzoo.no-ip.com/screenshots/flux04.jpg

 

Fairly easy to set up. I didn't like it, though and ended up going with gdesklets starterbar; although I am probably going to get rid of that in favor of something else in the near future.

 

Also, you can see in that screenshot that the "taskbar" does show all open windows/programs. I believe that one is still the "stable" version of Fluxbox, but I recommend getting version 0.9.9 from cooker or RPMFind. It's got a lot more features than the last "stable" version (0.1.14) and it is solid as a rock for me.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I came here for another reason but when I saw this I just HAD to respond... IMHO Fluxbox is absolute the best WM around... My desktop shows absolutely nothing unless I decide to keep the slit open. Everything seems to reside at my fingertips right below the desktop image. You definately must explore the tabs option... I can't live without it now.... also I use a window maker application (wmdrawer) to provide ready access to my most common applications... Note however that Kwickshow from KDE will not work and I've inquired at fluxmod and the fluxbox IRC channel on freenode. Seems like everyone has the same problem...

 

As for documentation, I find the man pages just WAY to helpful compared to so many others. I put it in my documentation menu (epiphany -n man:fluxobx) so I don't have to shell out to get to it. You could also do something like Eterm -e 'man fluxbox' but I prefer to read it in a browser.

 

btw... I am still struggling some with FONTS in the style files but what the heck... linux wouldn't be fun if it was dummied down like the other os's..

 

good luck and feel free to email any questions ... I'll do what I can to make you a full time Flux user.. :D

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