Brunellus
September 9th, 2005, 03:15 AM
Earlier, I asked whether it would be possible to run Fluxbox (http://www.fluxbox.org) as Gnome's default windowmanager instead of metacity.
I am pleased to report that this is possible. Consider this a draft howto, as I am busy trying to tweak things.
I am indebted to poofyhairguy's "enlightened gnome" howto, as well as Stormy Eyes' excellent advice on running Openbox within Gnome
STEP ONE: Installing Fluxbox
This is the easy part. Fluxbox is in universe; enable universe, fire up your terminal, and
$ sudo apt-get install fluxbox that sucker.
You can restart the Xsession here, if you like. When GDM comes up, you'll see Fluxbox added to your "Sessions" menu.
However, I would NOT restart the Xsession at this point. Fire up your terminal and
$ sudo /usr/share/xsessions/fluxbox.desktop
where you see
exec=fluxbox replace that line with
exec=startfluxbox
If you do this, Fluxbox will, on its first execution, generate a configuration file:
~/.fluxbox/startup
For a more complete discussion of what the startup file does in Fluxbox, please see This page in the Gentoo Wiki (http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Fluxbox#Startup_Applications)
Log into fluxbox, and confirm that it does, indeed work. We are now ready for
STEP TWO: Cramming Fluxbox into Gnome
This next section is essentially ripped off of poofyhairguy's excellent, and recently slashdotted, Enlightened Gnome Howto.
First, execute the following in a regular terminal:
$ sudo cp /usr/share/gnome/default.session ~/.gnome2/session
Then, edit that session file:
sudo gedit ~/.gnome2/session
Find this line:
1,RestartCommand=gnome-wm --sm-client-id default1 and change it to this:
1,RestartCommand=gnome-wm --default-wm fluxbox --sm-client-id default1
Save the file, restart your Xsession (CTRL+ALT+BKSPACE), and log back into gnome.
This will take a while. You will see fluxbox first, then the gnome-panel, and finally the desktop will appear and draw over all the fluxbox desktop.
Fluxbox in Gnome: First impressions
Fluxbox is a very lightweight windowmanager. Not for nothing is it the wm of choice of DamnSmallLinux (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org) From what I can tell, it takes up VERY little RAM.
It also draws and redraws faster than metacity, at least on my equipment--AMD k7, 512 MB RAM, nvidia geforce 5200 128mb VRAM-- and much neater as well.
Here's a neat trick that Fluxbox does: open two windows. Now middle-click drag one onto another. The two windows are now docked together: clicking on the titlebar will switch between windows. In this way, you can tab through any number of windows. This is particularly nice if you run stuff from terminals--that way, you can have the app in one window, then click the window itself and get the debug output.
Things I've got to figure out:
The nautilus desktop draws over fluxbox. Thus, no flux taskbar and no slit (the flux name for the dock).
Also, I can't get flux's right-click menu. Middle-click works.
Comments are ALWAYS welcome. A huge shout and thanks to the whole Ubuntu community--y'all rock, hard.
And of course, a screenshot (http://static.flickr.com/27/41568346_aa996d0e15_o.png) of my desktop. The wm is fluxbox, and an assload of gdesklets running.
I am pleased to report that this is possible. Consider this a draft howto, as I am busy trying to tweak things.
I am indebted to poofyhairguy's "enlightened gnome" howto, as well as Stormy Eyes' excellent advice on running Openbox within Gnome
STEP ONE: Installing Fluxbox
This is the easy part. Fluxbox is in universe; enable universe, fire up your terminal, and
$ sudo apt-get install fluxbox that sucker.
You can restart the Xsession here, if you like. When GDM comes up, you'll see Fluxbox added to your "Sessions" menu.
However, I would NOT restart the Xsession at this point. Fire up your terminal and
$ sudo /usr/share/xsessions/fluxbox.desktop
where you see
exec=fluxbox replace that line with
exec=startfluxbox
If you do this, Fluxbox will, on its first execution, generate a configuration file:
~/.fluxbox/startup
For a more complete discussion of what the startup file does in Fluxbox, please see This page in the Gentoo Wiki (http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Fluxbox#Startup_Applications)
Log into fluxbox, and confirm that it does, indeed work. We are now ready for
STEP TWO: Cramming Fluxbox into Gnome
This next section is essentially ripped off of poofyhairguy's excellent, and recently slashdotted, Enlightened Gnome Howto.
First, execute the following in a regular terminal:
$ sudo cp /usr/share/gnome/default.session ~/.gnome2/session
Then, edit that session file:
sudo gedit ~/.gnome2/session
Find this line:
1,RestartCommand=gnome-wm --sm-client-id default1 and change it to this:
1,RestartCommand=gnome-wm --default-wm fluxbox --sm-client-id default1
Save the file, restart your Xsession (CTRL+ALT+BKSPACE), and log back into gnome.
This will take a while. You will see fluxbox first, then the gnome-panel, and finally the desktop will appear and draw over all the fluxbox desktop.
Fluxbox in Gnome: First impressions
Fluxbox is a very lightweight windowmanager. Not for nothing is it the wm of choice of DamnSmallLinux (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org) From what I can tell, it takes up VERY little RAM.
It also draws and redraws faster than metacity, at least on my equipment--AMD k7, 512 MB RAM, nvidia geforce 5200 128mb VRAM-- and much neater as well.
Here's a neat trick that Fluxbox does: open two windows. Now middle-click drag one onto another. The two windows are now docked together: clicking on the titlebar will switch between windows. In this way, you can tab through any number of windows. This is particularly nice if you run stuff from terminals--that way, you can have the app in one window, then click the window itself and get the debug output.
Things I've got to figure out:
The nautilus desktop draws over fluxbox. Thus, no flux taskbar and no slit (the flux name for the dock).
Also, I can't get flux's right-click menu. Middle-click works.
Comments are ALWAYS welcome. A huge shout and thanks to the whole Ubuntu community--y'all rock, hard.
And of course, a screenshot (http://static.flickr.com/27/41568346_aa996d0e15_o.png) of my desktop. The wm is fluxbox, and an assload of gdesklets running.