questions about Fluxbox and more


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1. Is it possible to put icons on the desktop?

2. Whats your preferred style for Fluxbox?

3. Whats a good file manager to use? (If I use Nautilus it will start my Gnome desktop and I can no longer access the Fluxbox menu)

4. Any tips for a beginner?

Edit: one more question: how do I get Fluxbox to use the normal Gnome icons rather than the GTK Stock icons?

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Paging markjensen...you are needed in teh Customizing linux forum.... He's the man to ask, he uses fluxbox. Sorry I couldn't help.

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1. Yes, using something like:

fbdesk

ROX

3. There are a few, ROX does a good job. Also the one from ICEWM is a nice light choice.

Nautilus can be used, to prevent it from loading the GNOME desktop the option "--nodesktop" has to be passed.

4. https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=330008

Mark can give you better tips. Just wait till he sees this flux thread... :shifty:

Edited by Lechio
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Woke up to see this thread :p

Not that I have any more input than has already been given. But here is my take on the questions asked:

1. Is it possible to put icons on the desktop?

Yes. Distros like DamnSmallLinux do this by default. I believe that fbdesk, pointed out earlier, is popular for doing this. Fluxbox does not use desktop icons, and I actually hate the clutter that desktop icons create, so I have no personal experience with this, other than when I have booted DSL on some computer. You might be better served with a panel or dock that has "launcher" type icons. I have played with pypanel once before, and it can do this. This brings up an additional issue, as fluxbox comes packaged with a panel already, you would have to replace it. Alternatively, maybe use Openbox as your foundation, since Openbox doesn't come with a panel pre-included, and you include your own preferred panel. I googled and found that perlpanel may be a little more friendly option for you, including launchers and even a 'start'-like button.

2. Whats your preferred style for Fluxbox?

Not sure what you mean by this, as the *boxes really don't have "styles", other than basic window decorations. There are no Icon Styles in fluxbox. There is no scrollbar/widget styling, either. Those items are handled by whatever libraries (Lesstif, GTK, QT, etc) that the apps use - not by the Window Manager. But my window decorations are a modified version of fluxaqua. For theming the rest (GTK items and so forth), you do those the normal way for GTK I assume - I am not much into theming. I just use my computer. :p

3. Whats a good file manager to use? (If I use Nautilus it will start my Gnome desktop and I can no longer access the Fluxbox menu)

Coming from KDE when I first started using Linux, I have a fondness for konqueror as a file browser, because it is so much more, like a swiss army knife. It does requires the KDE libraries, and is therefore a bit heavier than I like, so I use the "thunar" browser that comes as default in Xubuntu now, pretty much exclusively for file browsing.

If you are using Nautilus, you are doing the same thing I was with konqueror, and have a very heavy browser loading in a bunch of libraries just to start up. Another alternative might be rox-filer for quick filesystem browsing.

4. Any tips for a beginner?

The guide that I started up a couple years ago is still valid, and I have actually updated tiny bits of it recently when I find out new tips, or others like Lechio have pointed out something to add. He already linked to it, and it would be good to read through it.

Edit: one more question: how do I get Fluxbox to use the normal Gnome icons rather than the GTK Stock icons?

That is a GTK theming question. Get GTK to use the icons you want, and you are done. Fluxbox has nothing to do with that. (yes, I know the separation can be tough to wrap your head around at first, but fluxbox is really only drawing the window decorations, the right-click menu, and the panel at the bottom.)

Hope that helps.

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PCmanFM can be used as both your file manager and as a desktop (icon) manager. That's what I would suggest for both of those. However, you can start nautilus without invoking the desktop aspect if you really want to. There is a switch to do so in its man page.

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Alternatively, maybe use Openbox as your foundation, since Openbox doesn't come with a panel pre-included, and you include your own preferred panel. I googled and found that perlpanel may be a little more friendly option for you, including launchers and even a 'start'-like button.

Thanks for the suggestion.

How do I access my programs? The OpenBox menu only lists Terminal emulator and Web browser.

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I know that fluxbox has the ability to 'import' the gnome menus into its menu, not sure about openbox, sorry.

Worst case, a menu editor, or direct editing of the menu file will work.

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The window border settings are specific for each style you have.

Look in the style text file for whichever one you are using, and find the setting

borderWidth:		1
bevelWidth:		0
handleWidth:		5

Set borderWidth to 0, possibly handleWidth to 0, too (that is your bottom handles) if you want to remove the bottom handles. Once changed, save the file, and in your fluxbox menus, you should have an item called "Reload config". This will re-read the file, and apply your changes.

Your windows can still be resized using ALT + RightDrag, even without window handles.

I think that's what you are after.

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In my "fluxbox" menu, which has some system things including styles and such, I those two items to reload config, and to 'restart' which just restarts flux. Then a separator and finally items to log off and to shutdown:

	[reconfig] (Reload config)
	[restart] (Restart flux)
	[separator]
	[exit] (Log Off)
	[exec] (Shutdown) {gksudo shutdown -h now}

If you want to add a restart, then it is the same as shutdown, but with an -r to restart, instead of -h to halt.

To be honest, I just added the shutdown in recently, and not 100% it works as gksudo. I think it should, but I really don't shutdown with that. I only shutdown because of a new kernel, and the package manager will prompt me if I want to do that, so I don't use the menu at all.

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^^^ Thanks. I'll change my menu. When I feel I want to reboot for the heck of it, I will test it out with the sudo (Y)

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^ Using the "sudo" to run that command may require inserting the password if it is set that way in the /etc/sudoers file. As it is running from the flux menu the user wouldn't be able to see it was being asked for the password.

It would only work if the user had these permissions set in the /etc/sudoers file:

userName ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL

Here the user "userName" can run commands using the "sudo" without being asked for a password.

Security flaw, do not use.

Using the gksu is a much better choice (provided that it is installed on the system).

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