myDSL Extensions (deprecated) :: fluxbox-0.9.9 mod



mikshaw -

I'm curious what would be involved in forcing fluxbox-0.9.9 as the default wm?  Figured I could save myself a lot of digging and searching by asking the expert :) .  I assume that actually replacing fluxbox-stable would be unnecessary, but would like to return to fb-0.9.9 from IceWM which might also involve startx?  Any helpful hints or insight?  Thanks in advance!

D9
I'm no expert =o)

I'm not sure how other window managers work in DSL, but I've tried to make fluxbox and evilwm both as easy to flip to as I can, without the need to manually edit ~/.xinitrc.  For this reason (and to keep flux-dev configs separate from flux-stable), startx isn't used.  Instead there is an additional script that is run as an alternative to startx, checks for some necessary configs, and then runs xinit.

So if you want to make it default when you start up,  replace "startx" in ~/.bash_profile with "$HOME/flux-dev", or you can bypass the flux-dev script by replacing the "fluxbox" line in ~/.xinitrc with "/opt/fluxbox-0.9.9/bin/fluxbox", returning to the use of the startx script.
Keep in mind that the second method causes flux-dev to fall back on the default configuration files used in Fluxbox stable, which have some minor differences from the configs included with fluxbox devel.  I never found a way to change the default configs when building the new fluxbox (at least not without editing the source files), so I forced it to use new configs by using the flux-dev script.

I'm going to start working on 0.9.10 soon....hopefully i will figure out a better approach with this one.  Maybe I'll be able to remove the wrapper entirely.
Awesome!  I'll play around with it.  Thanks again!!

I'm primarily interested in the new features it provides (like transparency) since fb-stable is a real impediment to my aesthetic manipulations :D .  fb-dev has a feature set similar to that of IceWM.  Anyone who's played with themes for fb has probably discovered (as I did) that many simply don't work (or don't work properly) with fb-stable.  I've also found a number of skins for xMMS, MPlayer & Xine which require transparency and therefore,  fb-dev.

I can't help but wonder if fb-dev is really that much larger than fb-stable or if it's just too "unstable"?

IMHO, calling someone an expert is usually relative to your own level of knowledge, and compared to me, you're clearly "Master of the Known Universe"!  :)

D9
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I can't help but wonder if fb-dev is really that much larger than fb-stable or if it's just too "unstable"?

I think a lot depends on what your priorities are for a window manager.  For example, most people seem to prefer KDE as a graphical environment due to its numerous features and easy to use configuration.  There are others (much fewer in number) who prefer using something like Blackbox or Ratpoison, which gives you a very minimal amount of frills for the sake of speed and low resource usage.  Fluxbox provides an excellent compromise between the two...it gives the user the ability to customize to a point, while still keeping it as light and fast as possible.  
The devel releases have become noticeably more bloated than the newest stable release, but my personal opinion is that the added features are worth the little bit of fat it has gained around the waist.  It's still much smaller and faster than some of the alternatives.  There are glitches here and there, but overall it's still very stable.  I have yet to see a crash or freeze, or really anything worse than some visual oddities here and there.  If it were compared to the stable release on an older system, like a 200mhz for example, the difference may be more apparent.  Since this is "Damn Small", I think just having Fluxbox stable instead of Blackbox is somewhat of a compromise. (I'm not complaining though :D )

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I'm primarily interested in the new features it provides (like transparency) since fb-stable is a real impediment to my aesthetic manipulation

There are even more improvements in the latest devel release.  
In 0.9.9, transparent menus meant transparent menu text as well, which I didn't really care for.  0.9.10 fixes this.
Transparency in menus caused some weird things in 0.9.9 sometimes...one I noticed a lot was parts of the menu going dark.  This has also been fixed.
The latest release no longer has trouble using styles from flux stable.
Pixmaps can now be used in menus.

original here.