What is fluxbox

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Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use. Click here for more info. What is fluxbox, and why do I want it? Just wondering, I've heard a lot about fluxbox lately. So apparently its just a windowmanager for X. Isn't that just what gnome is which is what I currently use? Could someone point out what all the fuss is about, and reasons that I would like using fluxbox more than gnome?

And with that said, I read on the fluxbox website that it "supports" KDE, and has partial "support" for gnome I'm really confused Find More Posts by gauntalus.

Flux is based on BlackBox, which is another lightweight window manager. You might NOT like it as well as Gnome. There isn't a taskbar by default, for instance, and there is no consistent look-and-feel.

It IS very configurable, so you can make it work the way you like, and not be dependent on what the Gnome folks think is best. Find More Posts by Padma. Yes, fluxbox is a window manager. A window manager is one component of a desktop environment like KDE and Gnome. The purpose of a desktop environment is to provide integration between many tools window manager, file manager, menuing system, etc. You can kind of think of Gnome and KDE as glue between the applications that perform different tasks.

However, you don't need an entire desktop environment to have a usable GUI. In fact, all you need is the X Window System. X comes with a built in window manager which, in all honesty, is pretty boring and limited in its capabilities as to be expected.

You can use a different window manager instead. The window manager can provide things like background images, virtual desktops, application menus, and window border decorations. Although fluxbox is "only" a windowmanager, there are typical applications that are frequently used amongst fluxbox users. The best way to get in contact with the development team is to join the official irc-channel and speak directly to them or to use the bug-tracker and forums at sourceforge.

For further information check out the help-site. The basic interface has only a TaskBar and a menu accessible by right-clicking on the desktop. Fluxbox also supports user created keyboard shortcuts. Fluxbox is an amazing piece of software that does not depend on any other WindowManager.

It is small, fast and almost a sure thing for pleasing the eye. You can choose any one of many pre-defined styles to tailor it to your taste. In accordance with Fluxbox's goal of simplicity, the main menu, the keyboard shortcuts and the basic configuration are all changed by editing text files.

Colors, gradients, borders, and several other basic appearance attributes can be specified; recent versions of Fluxbox support rounded corners and graphical elements. Fluxbox also has several features which blackbox lacks, including Tabbed Windows, a feature familiar from PWM, and configurable titlebar.

Installation If you do not have X installed, you need to install X first, using Aptitude or apt-get : apt-get install xorg After you can install fluxbox. XDM To run Fluxbox from xdm you should setup a. From Commandline To run Fluxbox from the commandline login, setup the. Another option is to use lxappearance. To change gtk theme for root, simply run gtk-theme-switch2 or lxappearance from root terminal.

This shows you how to edit GTK settings without any extra application installed. It's a matter of readability in this case.