Can Arch+Fluxbox do this?

bredin · 2008-06-29 00:23:47

I'm thinking of running arch+fluxbox. But I don't know if it will fullfill my needs. I'm currently running arch+xfce4 sience today, but will make a clean install if fluxbox works as I want it to. And I want to stay as far away from the gnome DE as possible, but I want to use some utils.
Will this work and how?

Fluxbox related questions:
[solved] 1. Hotkeys. Is it possible to set hotkeys for like fn+f2 to lock screen, fn+f3 for suspend, windows(super-L) for menu, aumix vol+/vol- and mute? That would be great.

Fixed everything but menu@super L (Fluxbox needs to be recompiled for this)
Added thinkpad60 in xorg.conf than I told fluxbox to use my keymap in the init file.
And added:

XF86AudioRaiseVolume :Exec aumix -v+5 
XF86AudioLowerVolume :Exec aumix -v-5
XF86AudioMute :Exec aumix -v0

in my ~/.fluxbox/keys file
and installed aumix.

[solved]2.Use some gnome/xfce apps/utils. Like gnomes networkmanager and powermanager? Make them autostart with fluxbox.

Archwiki@fluxbox page

[solved]3.It would be nice if the screen locked when the lid on my laptop is closed.

Gnome-screensaver took care of that.

[solved] 4.Cusom themes. GTK, iconthemes and cursors in fluxbox/gtk apps. Like tango icon theme in apps with some gtk2 + DMZ cursor theme. I know that there is a program for changing GTK themes in fluxbox. But I don't know how to change cursor or icon theme. And I know how to ad new themes.

lxappearance worked fine. And read problem 5 for how I changed my cursor.

[solved]5.Sub-pixel hinting? Nice looking fonts are important to me.

Added :

Xcursor*theme: Vanilla-DMZ
Xcursor.size:  16

xft.dpi:        96
xft.antialias:  true
xft.rgba:       rgb
xft.hinting:    true
xft.hintstyle:  hintfull

to my ~/.Xdefault file. the fonts looks nice anyway and it changed the boring xcursor to the Vanilla-DMZ cursor.

ArchLinux related quetions:

[solved]6.1024x768res in the boot text area? I tried to add "vga=773" in my kernalline i the grubfile but my arch said that there was something wrong with it and did not boot.

The problem I had was that my kernalline splitted into 2lines instead of one.

[solved]7.Mplayer-nogui. No interface for mplayer, just a video window+border.

Got it from pacman, the latest package.

[solved]8.Having trouble to install flashplayer to firefox. Tried to install it to /usr/lib/firefox-3.0 but it didn't work. I've also noticed that firefox is called Minefield. If that has something to do with it?

Works fine now after pacman -S flashplugin.

[solved]9.Swedish timezone. What should I enter in the rc.conf file?

(The bios clock got changed when I installed arch. So just resetted it to swedens current time and now I have swedish time in arch/fluxbox, same for xfce)

[solved]10.64vs32bit. My current system uses a core2duo processor(2ghz now, maybe 2,5 later) and 4gigs of ram. I've tried ubuntu 32 and 64bits and the only problem with 64bit was the flashplayer. And I've heard that there are no good flashplayers for 64bit, but there is flashplayers who works in youtube? And how to install it? the flashplayer complians that it is a 64bit system. I got the flashplayer in 64bit ubuntu with the ubuntu-restricted-extras package.

took the i686 version becuse it works,

I'm a previous windows+bbclean/ubuntu+gnome,kde,xfce user who is looking for a fast and functional system for my thinkpad-x61.

Please type the number of the question ifront of your answear to make it easier to understand.
Sorry for my bad english and thanks in advance .

Last edited by bredin (2008-08-04 19:00:50)

heleos · 2008-06-29 00:47:44

1.
Yes, you can. Not sure exactly how, havent used fluxbox in a while. A google search will probably work well.

6.
Here is my grub line (I think its 1280x1024)

kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb4 ro vga=795

7.

sudo pacman -S mplayer

8.
Are you using 64 bit arch?

Gullible Jones · 2008-06-29 01:00:15

bredin wrote:

I'm thinking of running arch+fluxbox. But I don't know if it will fullfill my needs. I'm currently running arch+xfce4 sience today, but will make a clean install if fluxbox works as I want it to.
Will this work and how?
Fluxbox related questions:
1. Hotkeys. Is it possible to set hotkeys for like fn+f2 to lock screen, fn+f3 for suspend, windows(super-L) for menu, aumix vol+/vol- and mute? That would be great.

Yes, with acpid and some other stuff. It's kind of a pain in the ass. Alternatively, you can use Fluxbox + Gnome, or an incomplete Gnome install. Or you can recompile the X server to make use of HAL for this stuff.

2.Use some gnome/xfce apps/utils. Like gnomes networkmanager and powermanager? Make them autostart with fluxbox.

Yes. This can in fact allow you to use hotkeys, as mentioned above.

3.It would be nice if the screen locked when the lid on my laptop is closed.

Can be set with acpid. Not sure about gnome-power-manager, but in Gnome (and Flux/Gnome) ctrl-alt-l should lock the screen.

4.Cusom themes. GTK, iconthemes and cursors in fluxbox/gtk apps. Like tango icon theme in apps with some gtk2 + DMZ cursor theme. I know that there is a program for changing GTK themes in fluxbox. But I don't know how to change cursor or icon theme. And I know how to ad new themes.

pacman -S lxappearance. This application allows you to change your themes, icons, and fonts.

Alternatively you can install Gnome (or part of Gnome) and use the control center to change your theme.

To install a theme, unpack it into ~/.themes.

5.Sub-pixel hinting? Nice looking fonts are important to me.

Available. Can be set in Gnome's control center, or with text files if you don't have that installed (not sure how though).

ArchLinux related quetions:
6.1024x768res in the boot text area? I tried to add "vga=773" in my kernalline i the grubfile but my arch said that there was something wrong with it and did not boot.

Could be that your monitor doesn't like that... No idea really.

7.Mplayer-nogui. No interface for mplayer, just a video window+border.

In the AUR.

The next version of MPlayer is supposed to be compiled without the GUI; however, the new version in Testing still has it. Not sure what's up with that.

8.Having trouble to install flashplayer to firefox. Tried to install it to /usr/lib/firefox-3.0 but it didn't work. I've also noticed that firefox is called Minefield. If that has something to do with it?

pacman -S flashplugin. Installing things to the system without pacman is generally not a good idea.

9.Swedish timezone. What should I enter in the rc.conf file?

Europe/Stockholm, probably, or CET.

10.64vs32bit. My current system uses a core2duo processor(2ghz now, maybe 2,5 later) and 4gigs of ram. I've tried ubuntu 32 and 64bits and the only problem with 64bit was the flashplayer. And I've heard that there are no good flashplayers for 64bit, but there is flashplayers who works in youtube? And how to install it? the flashplayer complians that it is a 64bit system. I got the flashplayer in 64bit ubuntu with the ubuntu-restricted-extras package.

On 64-bit you can use 32-bit flashplayer through a wrapper (foggy on the details there), or you can use Gnash or swfdec-mozilla. Gnash is fast but does not play Youtube (yet); swfdec-mozilla plays Youtube vids, but is *extremely* slow. I'm not sure how good the other option is.

peets · 2008-06-29 01:26:35

A lot of these questions will be answered if you read The Beginner's Guide

sujoy · 2008-06-29 16:10:25

1. look up xbindkeys in the wiki and the forum for this
2. yes you can but try to stay away from gnome apps (brings in the damn gnome deps), use wicd for network management
3. can be done. look up acpid
7. get mplayer by pacman -S mplayer . now you can just type in mplayer ... in a terminal to get what you want or gmplayer for the gui. look up aur/mplayer-no-gui 1.0rc2-3 for the GUI less version.
8. i am using i686 and extra/flashplugin 9.0.124.0-1 works fine with both firefox and opera.
9. thats in the begginer's guide.

josomebody · 2008-06-29 19:09:40

1.) You can also bind keys to commands in ~/.fluxbox/keys. Could help for bringing up the menu. I use xbindkeys for all the media keys and stuff still though.

Kind of a neat setup I use in fluxbox is to bind Mod4+[q,w,e,r,a,s,d,f] to programs I like to have running backgrounded in order of priority, so when I start fluxbox I can choose its footprint depending on what I'm doing with it. (e.g. Mod4+q = aterm, w=pidgin, e=minefield, r=sauerbraten for sequence 1, Mod4+a=nitrogen (to set the wallpaper), s=gkrellm, d=root-tail, f=sauerbraten server for sequence 2), so the lighter I wanna run, the fewer of those keys I hit.

bredin · 2008-08-04 19:02:09

Wow. I got it all working!
The only problem now is my xorg.
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=52325

Arch Linux

#1 2008-06-29 00:23:47

Can Arch+Fluxbox do this?

#2 2008-06-29 00:47:44

Re: Can Arch+Fluxbox do this?

#3 2008-06-29 01:00:15

Re: Can Arch+Fluxbox do this?

#4 2008-06-29 01:26:35

Re: Can Arch+Fluxbox do this?

#5 2008-06-29 16:10:25

Re: Can Arch+Fluxbox do this?

#6 2008-06-29 19:09:40

Re: Can Arch+Fluxbox do this?

#7 2008-08-04 19:02:09

Re: Can Arch+Fluxbox do this?

Board footer