Guide - Fluxbox a minimalist window manager | TechEnclave

Hi all,
I just installed fluxbox (at some point fluxbuntu) & while its pretty early days yet here is what I got so far .

The installation is/was fairly simply :-

Code:

sudo aptitude install fluxbox

This installs the new fluxbox 1.0rc3 but it doesn't install it in the GDM login screen. For that you have to write a fluxbox.desktop entry in Xsessions :-

Code:

 sudo gedit /usr/share/xsessions/fluxbox.desktop

In this file add the following lines :-

Code:

[Desktop Entry]
 Encoding=UTF-8
 Name=Fluxbox
 Comment=Highly configureable low resource X11 Window Manager
 Exec=/usr/bin/startfluxbox
 Terminal=False
 TryExec=/usr/bin/startfluxbox
 Type=Application

Congrats now you have a new entry in your GDM login screen as well as know where the different window managers desktop entries are put up.

But we aren't done yet. There are tons of stuff you can customize . For e.g. you can customize the startup. For that first boot up in fluxbox so you have a .fluxbox directory entry in your home directory. After that open up the startup file :-

Code:

# fluxbox startup-script:
#
# Lines starting with a '#' are ignored.

# You can set your favourite wallpaper here if you don't want
# to do it from your style.
#
# fbsetbg -f ~/pictures/wallpaper.png
#
# This sets a black background

/usr/bin/fbsetroot -solid black

# This shows the fluxbox-splash-screen
# fbsetbg -C /usr/local/share/fluxbox/splash.jpg

# Other examples. Check man xset for details.
#
# Turn off beeps:
# xset -b
#
# Increase the keyboard repeat-rate:
# xset r rate 195 35
#
# Your own fonts-dir:
# xset +fp $HOME/.font
#
# Your favourite mouse cursor:
# xsetroot -cursor_name right_ptr
# 
# Change your keymap:
# xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap

# Applications you want to run with fluxbox.
# MAKE SURE THAT APPS THAT KEEP RUNNING HAVE AN & AT THE END.
#
# unclutter -idle 2 &
# wmnd &
# wmsmixer -w &
# idesk &

# And last but not least we start fluxbox.
# Because it is the last app you have to run it with exec before it.

exec /usr/bin/fluxbox
# or if you want to keep a log:
# exec /usrl/bin/fluxbox -log ~/.fluxbox/log

Now the first thing would be just to make a backup of this file before we do any editing so a quick :-

Code:

sudo cp ~/.fluxbox/startup ~/.fluxbox/startupbackup

Now make changes , logout & log back in to see if the change is ok or not.
One can also add applications so they are in sessions :-

Code:

# Applications you want to run with fluxbox.
# MAKE SURE THAT APPS THAT KEEP RUNNING HAVE AN & AT THE END.
exec /usr/local/bin/fluxbox
gaim &
firefox &

Make sure to add # and a comment so you know what you have done.

The next thing we can do is change look, style by using the overlay file. Using the overlay file is cool, as even if you do any muckups it doesn't do much damage, think of overlay as the layers in GIMP or in Photoshop. So we have to edit the fluxbox init file .

Code:

sudo cp ~/.fluxbox/init ~/.fluxbox/initbackup
gksudo gedit ~/.fluxbox/init
session.styleOverlay: ~/.fluxbox/overlay

The difference we have done here & the one way above is that is to be used for applications while this is more for the look & feel. Also there is nice compartmentalization otherwise all is a mess.

Now make and edit the overlay file :-

Code:

glsudo gedit ~/.fluxbox/overlay
menu.title.font: sans-10:bold
toolbar.clock.font: sans-10:bold
toolbar.workspace.font: sans-10:bold
menu.frame.font: sans-15:bold
.font: sans-25

Now as can be seen, this is very very similar to how we do stuff in mozilla firefox (the overlay file) in about:config

now fluxbox is not about oohing & aahing as its functionality is for older machines, meaning you can use this WM to run on pentium 2 or celeron based machines. Of course with doing things as transparency etc. you can get cool stuff like :-