iphitus Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 THis is part of my upcoming Themeing and Desktop Environment HOW-TO. THe HOW-TO is shamelessly biased towards GNOME, Fluxbox and GTK. I used GNOME 2.4 during the writing of this, but it should work in previos versions. Any comments are greatly appreciated. Changing the GNOME WM There are two ways of changing the gnome WM. If the first one fails as it does with Fluxbox, the second will work. Method A 1) Start gconf-editor, you can start this at the command line, if you dont have it, see below. 2) Browse to /desktop/gnome/applications/window_manager 3) Change the key 'default' so it's value is the path to your new window manager. If you are unsure of this at a command line type 'whereis nameofwm' replacing nameofwm with the command used to start the WM. Method B Should that not work, we have to workaround GNOMEs refusal to use our preferred WM. 1) Go to: GNOME Menu > Applications > Desktop Preferences > Advanced > Sessions 2) Once sessions is open, go the the 'Startup Programs' tab, then click Add 3) In the dialog that appears set the 'Order' to 1 and the startup command to the command used to start your WM. How this works? By setting the order to 1 GNOME will start this before anything else and when it comes to starting the default WM, it will fail, simply because there is already one running. This slows down startup a bit but if you like your WM, you wont mind. TIP: Blackbox, Fluxbox and other *boxes. In these boxes, when the GNOME desktop starts, the desktop area provided by Nautiulus will be given a window border. This really ruins the look, it's terrible. Also the panels will not always be positioned quite right, so that needs to be fixed. The good news is that in Fluxbox, these can be fixed easily, however if you use Blackbox or one of the other *boxes, bad luck. The following requires a fluxbox version of 0.9.2 or better. I reccomend you get a development version of fluxbox, at time of writing im using 0.9.6pre9 and it is perfectly stable, albeit one or two small bugs. There are RPMs at the bottom of this page. Removing the desktop border: Add these lines to your ~/.fluxbox/apps file. [app] (desktop_window) [Deco] {0xbffff110} [Sticky] {yes} [Layer] {12} [end] Deco tells it to remove the border, Sticky, to make it, erm Sticky and Layer to make sure it stays below all running X Clients. For this to work, Fluxbox needs to be restarted. I am not sure if you can stick the lines in while FLuxbox is running. Positioning the panel: This can be a real problem if you have more than one panel, which I dont, I have the one that runs across the top of the screen. You can add these lines to your ~/.fluxbox/apps file. [app] (gnome-panel) [Position] {0 0} [end] They are self explanatory, the two numbers are the X and Y co-ordinates of the top left corner of the GNOME panel. As with any modifications of the Fluxbox apps file, Fluxbox needs to be restarted. GCONF-EDITOR Debian: apt-get install gconf-editor Mandrake rpm for GNOME 2.4: http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idp...k.i586.rpm.html Red Hat: The mandrake RPM should be fine otherwise ask Google. FLUXBOX DEVELOPMENT Mandrake - Fluxbox 0.9.6pre9 Source RPM: http://rpmfind.net//linux/RPM/cooker/contr...9_1mdk.src.html Mandrake - Fluxbox 0.9.6pre8 Compiled RPM: http://rpmfind.speakeasy.net/linux/RPM/coo...e8mdk.i586.html Debian - I have a source but it isnt up to date, alien one of these or get the source tarball Red Hat: The mandrake RPM should be fine otherwise ask Google. Source - http://www.fluxbox.org/download/fluxbox-cu...rent-cvs.tar.gz Thanks to Liquidzoo for osme of the RPM links. Arent the people on #musb so helpful!! There ya go, if you have problems, let me know. If you use KDE I dont want to know you. Just Kidding. There is a KDE method coming soon and it is much easier. James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulSe Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 Woo-Hoo! :plan: Thanks rcxau - you're the shit! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 The easy way..... killall metacity && sleep 5 && fluxbox && gnome-session-save :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted September 30, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 The easy way..... killall metacity && sleep 5 && fluxbox && gnome-session-save :wink: Debian has sawfish as default, that didnt work. I have a feeling it wouldnt work for Metacity and Fluxbox either, but thats a guess. James. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 Oh, believe me the concept works. Because of diff versions of gnome-session the sleep command is the deciding factor. Sometimes it's needed, sometimes not, sometimes a different time variable other than 5....but it works. It's it's how I changed to metacity from sawfish in Debian, though I don't remember what I did with 'sleep'. Works in Mandrake and RedHat too. It works. It's how I tried flux, and wiamea in mandrakes gnome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 Go here; http://gnomesupport.org/forums/ for anything 'Gnome' but also to 'Search for all terms' with; killall AND metacity http://gnomesupport.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4152&highlight=killall+metacity killall' target='_blank'>http://gnomesupport.org/forums/viewtopic.p...ty[CODE]killall</a> sawfish && fluxbox && gnome-session-save Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 and what are the advantages of using flux with gnome ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 When I did it I was just playing around. The only reason I can think is for absolute control of a menu by having flux's rt-click menu. :? :?: Oh, and I guess you could also have the rounded corner terms if u use beta and when it's released. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlc Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 Hey what about OpenBox or atleast the method they explain. Same principle as Flux I would think?? Also tells how to use it in KDE. ScreenShot in action! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted October 1, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 1, 2003 and what are the advantages of using flux with gnome ? bvc: There is no fluxbox beta. There is a development version which is very very stable. paul: I like fluxbox, i didnt want to reconfigure all my keyboard shortuts and stuff for GNOME, using flux i keep em all. I like the way fluxbox themes work, they can look great, but lfuxbox is still very light on the system. It's easy to make flux themes, i have no idea for metacity or sawfish. James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted October 1, 2003 Report Share Posted October 1, 2003 devel/beta/same thing, no? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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