Fluxbox

This howto will show you how to set up the Fluxbox window manager for X11.

Introduction to the Fluxbox window manager
For those who are unfamiliar with Linux's desktop model, window managers (WMs) are the applications which are run by X11 to manage other graphical programs. WMs control where each window is placed, its size, and which desktop(s) have access to it. This can be done automatically via a set of user-defined rules or can be done at runtime with the mouse and possibly keyboard shortcuts, depending on the specific WM.

Some WMs, however, take on more functionality than just window management. Fluxbox also provides a platform for launching applications, configuring keyboard shortcuts and background images, as well as displaying information with the slit. GNOME's default WM, Metacity, does not include these things, but they are available through other GNOME programs. Thus, one cannot truly say that Fluxbox is a lightweight WM. However, since Fluxbox includes everything necessary for a basic desktop, many people use it in place of larger desktop suites like GNOME or KDE.

To make things even more confusing, however, Fluxbox can replace the default WM for GNOME or KDE. For example, some people find that Metacity, GNOME's window manager, simply does not have the flexibility they need, but that Fluxbox does not have all the built-in applications and integration they desire from a complete desktop environment. Thus, a person could use Fluxbox to manage the windows and GNOME for the rest. Note, however, that with this setup there are some issues caused by overlapping feature sets.

Fluxbox can also be expanded by third party software. This is often ideal in situations where hardware resources are limited, or even just as a matter of personal taste.

This guide is aimed at those who are new to Fluxbox, curious, or who are just wanting to get more out of the Gentoo/Fluxbox experience. This guide will also illustrate how to get more (yet quite optional) functionality by using third party programs which work well with Fluxbox.

Base installation
First, make sure you've installed a working X environment, as shown in the X Server Configuration HOWTO.

Before you install Fluxbox, you should take a look at some of the available USE flags.

While the  and   USE flags are provided to give compatibility with these environments, it has been the author's experience that these USE flags are not needed. If you desire qt, gtk+, or any KDE/GNOME utility then you are free to emerge and configure those independently. The  and   flags simply add support for the respective protocols, and do not depend on external libraries. However, they do increase the Fluxbox binary size.

There is also a  flag to make configuration easier later on. This flag will install, a special Fluxbox color scheme for. This enables users to more readily see the contents of their keys and init files for Fluxbox. It's a tiny extension for vim, so it's highly recommended.

Finally, there are two flags that customize the functionality of Fluxbox,  and. These flags are provided so that users who don't need the slit or the toolbar can compile Fluxbox without them. This is useful if you want to run an extremely minimal environment, or if you plan to use different applications that provide these features, such as standalone panels or docks.

Once you've decided on your USE flags, add them to :

It is also necessary to have a program lock the X display to prevent unauthorized access, so it would be wise to also emerge. The vast majority of users will also want the ability to set their own background, so we will emerge, which doubles as a nice X11 terminal.

Well, that's it; Fluxbox is now installed! However, it is likely that you will not be able to use it efficiently with just those tools. The following sections will help install other potentially necessary packages, and configure Fluxbox and the third party programs to work for you. Keep in mind that all these steps are optional, so feel free to pick and choose.

Preparing X11
Fluxbox is simply another program that X11 runs. If desired, one can  and then type   at an xterm. However, this is annoying to say the least. If one does not desire to boot to the GUI, but instead wants to start X11 manually, it is possible to have X automatically load Fluxbox by executing, as a normal (non-root) user:

This is also not ideal for most users, as they want to have the desktop environment all the time; it is a pain to  if it is desired to use a GUI everytime you boot. It also presents a security risk to the unaware. If one locks the X11 display using, but run X11 from a console, then someone with physical access to the computer can switch to that console, kill X11, and use your account. The only way to prevent this is to either background X11 or run it in screen, detach the screen, and then logout of the console, a tedious task at best. If one uses a graphical login manager, this problem does not exist. However, you will be running X11 as root, which may be a bad thing. There are, as of this writing, no exploits that the author is aware of for the current version, but if one is concerned, then either not use X11 or use the above method with screen. Note that this is not a Fluxbox issue, but affects X11 itself.

There are a number of graphical login managers to choose from; we will be using SLiM. You may use another manager at your option, but SLiM works well for Fluxbox, as well as any other environments you may have installed such as GNOME, KDE, or Xfce.

Themes and Artwork
This section can be skipped if one truly wants a minimal footprint. However, it is nice to allow users to customize their WM's appearance. Themes specific to Fluxbox, Gentoo artwork for any WM, and themes that can be used on any *box WM will be installed.

Running Fluxbox for the first time
Now you are ready to run Fluxbox for the first time. It will create a directory called in your home directory, which is where Fluxbox stores all its settings, and populate it with some default values.

If you've installed SLiM or another display manager, start it by becoming root and running:

Then choose Fluxbox as your session and login with your regular user.

Once Fluxbox is running, it will look pretty plain. You should see a blank desktop with a toolbar at the bottom. You can then right-click anywhere on your desktop to bring up the menu. From there you should be able to start up any X applications you would like to run, or open up a terminal from which you can run anything you like.

Fluxbox Keys
Fluxbox comes with a very weak set of default keysets. It enables a user to switch windows and desktops, and no more. Before changing it, there are a few things necessary to know. In the Fluxbox keys file, there are some strange modifiers. Mod1 is commonly known as the "Alt" key, and Mod4 is the unspeakable (windows) key. Control and Shift are Control and Shift. However, it is usually best to use Alt/Windows keys because other X11 programs tend to use Control and Shift for their own shortcuts.

All of these are independent, so feel free to leave out anything not desired, or modify this to your own needs. This guide uses what the author assumes to be the most common programs, so also substitute the name of the package used if it differs from what appears here. For more information, read the man page for Fluxbox.

So, with that out of the way, fire up a text editor (non-root user), point it to, and lets upgrade those shortcuts!

System Monitor
It is a common desire to setup a system monitor for X11 on desktop systems. Gkrellm is a commonly used monitor, but in the spirit of Fluxbox minimalism, we are going to use a simpler monitor:. If desired, use another monitor; there are plenty of HOWTOs elsewhere.

The default config file for Conky is rather weak, but more info can be found by reading the manpage or the Gentoo Linux Conky Howto.

Icons
Fluxbox does not come with a utility or program to draw icons to the desktop; everything is handled by keyboard shortcuts, or the right-click menu. iDesk is a program that can be used to fulfill this need. It is aimed at users of minimal WMs like ourselves who want to display icons in the root window, and it even supports funky graphic effects like transparency! Despite its name, iDesk is not affiliated with Apple or Mac (to the best of the author's knowledge). Installing iDesk is as simple as:

Once installed, it will be necessary to configure iDesk so that it is able to display the icons we desire. Its configuration file can be found at. This is a rather lengthy task, and can't be well covered in this guide. The following resources might be useful in order to help you configure iDesk:, iDesk's Usage Guide and this thread in the Gentoo Forums.

Graphical File Manager Options
It is important to note that Gentoo does not need a file manager. It is perfectly possible, and indeed simpler (in the author's humble opinion), to do all the file manipulation by command-line. However, not everyone agrees...

Many users who are new to Gentoo/Fluxbox are put off by the lack of a graphical file manager such as  in GNOME. Fluxbox itself does not provide such a program, but as always, it is simple to acquire one. There are many choices, but this guide will present three, one for the gentoo who likes text only and two for the user who likes rox to thunar. It is also possible, of course, to install all three and try them out.

Gentoo File Manager - Minimalism
Gentoo is a file manager which seeks to provide the benefits of a GUI interface without all the bloat which is commonly associated with such interfaces.

The Gentoo file manager aims to be fully configurably via GUI, so feel free to tweak.

Rox File Manager - Includes Icons
Rox is a file manager which uses icons as well as text and is much more like Windows' Explorer.

Rox behaves much like "traditional" file managers, so its interface should be intuitive. If not, there always are manpages.

Thunar File Manager
Thunar is a lightweight, fast file manager that, like Rox, behaves much like "traditional" file managers. It includes icons and text, and it's easy to use. Though originally designed for Xfce, it's a nice complement to a Fluxbox-based system.

Picture Viewer
Many WMs come with utilities to view pictures in a directory. These applications are small and lightweight, and do not allow for editing (which is assumed to be done by the  or similar). This is necessary if you use a command line,, or   for a file manager. Though  can display image thumbnails, a separate lightweight image viewer is still a good idea.

can be launched in any directory, and can browse through any supported picture format.

Setting a theme, background, and a startup script
Fluxbox has a number of themes that can be accessed by the right click menu, then "Fluxbox menu," and "System Styles." These themes usually set their own background, which is either a single color or a gradient of some type. Most people prefer to set their own background, and keep it no matter what theme they chose. To do so, we need to edit another of Fluxbox's files, which governs startup behavior. So fire up that text editor again, and point it to.

If this file exists, then clear it. Add the following to the newly created file, uncommenting as needed, and filling in values for the CAPS.

Menu generation
The author uses a text editor to create menus. If this sounds appealing to you, please skip this section and proceed to Editing Menus by Hand.

It is possible to edit by hand after using an automatic generator (see next section), to either add packages or delete those which aren't used. Note that if something is deleted from this menu, it does not delete the package from the system, just from the individual user's menu. The program can still be run by command-line.

There is a program already on your system called fluxbox-generate_menu, which can be used to generate menus. To run it (as a non-root user):

It is recommended that you use the fluxbox-generate_menu listed above instead of other programs, which do not understand Gentoo's directory structure.

This can also be done from the Fluxbox menu itself. There is usually an entry in the "Fluxbox" menu called "Regen Menu" which will re-run this script, looking for any new applications that have been installed since the last time you ran it.

Editing Menus by Hand
Fluxbox's menu is a text file that follows a quite simple syntax, described in this section. The default menu definition is present in the file.

Menu entries for executing applications are defined by the  element. You can define an entry, either under the  definition (the menu root), or between a   and its corresponding   line (submenu definitions), for example:

The root menu definition begins with the  tag, followed by its name, between parentheses and ends with its corresponding   tag. All the menu commands (called here, tags) are enclosed by square brackets, menu names will be enclosed between parentheses and the actual commands are enclosed between braces. Comments are allowed in this file, for lines beginning with.

In the example shown above, the first  line defines a new entry named "XTerm White on Black", which will execute xterm -ls -fg white -bg black as if from a command line. Next is a submenu which is defined using the  tag, and after that a section called "More terminals", with two more   commands. Any submenu definition must have its corresponding  tag.

There are other menu commands that you can use in your file. Please read the official documentation available online for more information.

Modifying bash's PATH variable
Assume that you created a folder which keeps all kinds of handy scripts. The scripts contained in that folder must be called like this

Adding to your PATH variable supersedes typing the full path to your scripts and is achieves as follows

Restarting fluxbox is not sufficient. You must log out and log in again. For more indepth information about bash read this Wiki's Bash entry and read the section called INVOCATION in bash's manpage.

Resources

 * The Fluxbox wiki
 * Fluxbox developers and users in #fluxbox on chat.freenode.net

Summary
Congratulations! Fluxbox is now installed, configured, and ready to go. If any questions or suggestions come to mind, please email the author and/or file a bug report at Gentoo's Bugzilla.