FluxBox Assessment and summation.

Message

shredluc · Post by **shredluc** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 3:31 am

I decided to voice my observations about the Fluxbox WM. Here goes:
PROS:
Fluxbox is a very nice WM with unprecedented simplicity, and configuration ability. When configured correctly can be a joy to operate and use on a daily basis. With each new version it becomes more friendly to use and supports more "eye-candy" (that we all love and despise at the same time).
CONS:
It comes as bare-bones as my late dead grandfather. Sorry to say, but we need some graphical configuration tools. I love (Vim, nano, pick your choice) but come on. Changing a background is just ridiculous. It's harder than installing the damm thing. (untill you find that one line of code posted on page 7 of a thread so long forgotten the font looks old.) We need to expand and sift through all documetation and create easy to follow walkthroughs. I've searched the forums and found dozens of threads with the same questions and scattered answers. Getting something to work is hours of searching coupled with more hours of trial and error. What would be better yet, it to have the configuration files setup for a fully usable system in the first place. Most of us spend hours trying to configure Flux, just to end up with systems that look almost the same. It should come preconfigured with most of this stuff.

Don't get me wrong, Fluxbox is great, if you like spending more time configuring it than actually using it - and make sure you back up those configs, cause if they dissapear, you will be mighty angry.

My summation: Hold off on it for now, unless you are really brave. It still needs some work.

slikdigit · Post by **slikdigit** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 4:10 am

I'm not sure I agree- fluxbox is a window manager, not a de. there are many ways to set the background- esetroot,bsetbg, gnome-background-properties, etc.
a desktop environment contains many programs to do all those tasks. window manager does just that.
its better to compare fluxbox to metacitiy or kwin, rather than gnome or kde. metacity doesn't set the background, and neither should flux.
(I know quite a few 'beginners' who love flux, btw.)

shredluc · Post by **shredluc** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 4:20 am

I see what you are saying, but my point is not the background. It's just an example. And im not saying that flux is in any way bad. Personally i use it too, and i love it. I just think that configuration is made unnecessarily hard through the lack of documentation, or i should say documentation that is in one place. The fluxbox site gives some help, but surely not enough. If there is a problem, even a minor one, you might be stuck reading forum after forum, searching for the answer for hours when it should have been in the Doc's to begin with.

jcmkk · Post by **jcmkk** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 5:20 am

I can't say I really agree with you on the configuration thing. Compared to other window managers, I find Fluxbox to be very easy to configure. The config files are very straight forward. There's even a script that checks which background setting programs you have installed and uses the best one (bsetbg). However, I can never argue with more and simpler documentation.

lamaistres · Post by **lamaistres** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 6:25 am

Read/Print the fluxbox documentation. It has so much good information that when you finish reading it I think you will be a flux guru and may find that fluxbox is so simple to configure you'lle wonder why it needs simple config tools.

Anacific · Post by **Anacific** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 7:05 am

I think it would be nice to have a config app that does the basics. Of course, you can say that flux is not a DE. However, I don't know anyone who doesn't want to have nice wallpaper. Why include a nice way of setting it via the flux menu.

I don't have a problem with setting it manually, I just think it would be nice to have.

Long live flux!

mb4guns · Post by **mb4guns** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:04 am

yes there is no need for a great wm to have bloated configuration tools and wizzards, stick to kde/gnome if u want that.
I was a kde users for months, gnome user for a year (still love gnome) now using fluxbox for 2 months and I must say I love it. Simple, fast, still good looking (compared to other wm).

bitzer · Post by **bitzer** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 2:19 pm

Getting something to work is hours of searching coupled with more hours of trial and error.

Dude, that's my bread and butter. The main reason I moved to gentoo was b/c Redhat started to feel too much like Windows. I moved from KDE for much the same reason (i.e. it felt a bit too bloated, etc.). One of the main attractions is that I don't automatically know how to do everything. Once I've risen above the n00b level with Flux (and Linux as a whole), I probably won't need anything like that anyways.

mb4guns · Post by **mb4guns** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 2:32 pm

bitzer wrote:The main reason I moved to gentoo was b/c Redhat started to feel too much like Windows. I moved from KDE for much the same reason (i.e. it felt a bit too bloated, etc.). One of the main attractions is that I don't automatically know how to do everything. Once I've risen above the n00b level with Flux (and Linux as a whole), I probably won't need anything like that anyways.

If we had a Fact's board here u should post

well said

anoncow · Post by **anoncow** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 3:21 pm

I was a GNOME user up to about 3 months ago, when I decided to install fluxbox and have never looked back.

fluxbox may be harder to configure for someone who is new, but it teaches them about linux and how to use basic commands and editors.

fluxbox is a good choice for someone who wants to learn about *nix O/Ses.

GNOME/KDE is a good choice for someone who just wants everything to be close to windows.

It just comes down to what you like the best and what works for you the best, not what everyone else uses.

Unne · Post by **Unne** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 5:15 pm

http://fluxbox.org/docbook/en/fluxbox-docs.html is pretty good as far as documentation goes. Not the greatest in the world, but pretty good. Some things could be a little better, like the part about making themes. But it explains setting backgrounds, etc. I find things like the menu file to be extremely easy to understand and use even without documentation.

Mongrol · Post by **Mongrol** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 6:52 pm

Providing configuration tools does not turn a WM into a DE. Windowmaker is a fast, light WM and has full GUI configuration. I agree with the threadmaker. In the year 2003 the last thing I want to do is disrupt my productivity to rake through longforgotten documentation to change wallpaper. Providing GUI configuration tools would add no weight to WM operationally whatsoever. It would make a good product more professional and acceptable. Let's get our heads out of the arses here and our programs out the dark ages.

Wedge_ · Post by **Wedge_** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 7:06 pm

I'm sure I've seen programs and scripts on the forums and elsewhere that can change wallpapers for you. I made a little script which does it the way I want. There are GUI apps for configuring most of the fb settings - try emerging fluxconf.

zerb · Post by **zerb** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 8:07 pm

Like a lot of you I've been using KDE and Gnome for some time before i tried Windowmaker and finally Fluxbox. All i can say is that I just love it. It's fast, small and highly customisable. If you want to configure Fluxbox the easy way Fluxconf can do all that for you.

Well, I'm looking forward to the Fluxbox 1.x series after using the 0.9.x releases for some time now.

shm · Post by **shm** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 8:24 pm

Anacific wrote:I think it would be nice to have a config app that does the basics.

There are plenty of these available already.

I've barely used fluxbox, but I used blackbox for a year before going back to KDE once I got a non-POS system. I simply perfer a DE.

Toth · Post by **Toth** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 8:36 pm

anoncow wrote:fluxbox is a good choice for someone who wants to learn about *nix O/Ses.

Fluxbox for someone who wants to learn about *nix? Why? Because it forces you to edit its configuration files manually? That is not learning about *nix, that is learning about using an editor (vi, nano, whatever) to edit a configuration file. You could "learn" just as much about a *nix OS by editing a generic XF86Config file for your system...which most of the people using a distribution like Gentoo (GNOME/KDE users included) have done.

anoncow wrote:GNOME/KDE is a good choice for someone who just wants everything to be close to windows.

GNOME and KDE are for people who like the look and feel of the respective environments. They are for people who want a comprehensive, usable GUI that they can configure to their liking *without* editing configuration files manually. People don't (always) use GNOME/KDE because they want to emulate Windows. Hell, most people who use Linux in the first place do so because they prefer it over Windows.

Concerning the original topic, I agree with Mongrol. WindowMaker is a great example.

-Toth

DayLung · Post by **DayLung** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 10:38 pm

There is fluxconf which is a gui config tool for just about all aspects of fluxbox. I personally haven't used it as i enjoy vi too much but from what i've seen on the webpage http://devaux.fabien.free.fr/flux/ it's at the very least a good start.

aLEczapKA · Post by **aLEczapKA** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 10:50 pm

Most of the options you can configure by clicking - just use the
Configuration menu, there is also fluxconf and lots of programs which can help you to change the background - just look at the fluxbox home page.

Of cause having nice GUI configurator aka Window Maker would be nice, but we have very limited resources - Fluxbox is mainly one man show - Fluxgen (Henrik Kinnunen) is the main developer - we receive lots of patches from ppl on our devel-mailing-list, which is great - but this won't let us work on some new stuff... and I personaly would like Henrik to work on _really_ important things then waste his time on some tool, which is not that neccessery to have - like GUI configurator.

I did lost my config files and it wasn't that big pain to configure it again, just read a few docs on Fluxbox homepage to recall all the options.
But I agree, we need to fix our documentation and explain this part more (maybe provide some sample configs?) but Tobias who was fluxbox docs maintainer had to quit it (lack of time) - so we are again limited by the resources...

When you consider all of it, I think Fluxbox is doing very well, while being so short on people who (active) work on it.
So if anyone would like to improve Fluxbox (development, docs, webpage) please do - we would really use your help.

Oliwier Ptak
Fluxbox Webmaster

kniteshade · Post by **kniteshade** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 1:20 am

another point regarding gui configuration tools

if we had some fancy tool that one of the few flux developers made - then just say that it'd support all of the reatures that fluxbox had... now developer X adds feature F, now if its not in the gui config tool as soon as cvs is updated with the new feature, then its useless to the person who doesn't know what the .fluxbox folder is. So while the developer adds the configuration for the feature to the config tool - he's spending time NOT making new pretty features (like the new rounded corners - they're very pretty when you turn window decoratiosn off and have transparent aterms!)

Of course you coud say that a tool is easy to make, or that someone else coudl do it - but i imagine it'd never be kept up to date - or if it was it'd be a waste of somebodys time to do so

I agree that a tool to do some simple stuff would be handy - but in the end i made my own scripts to randomize wallpapers at startup - and some dodgy gui tool wouldn't have been able to supply that feature anyhow - im better of without it

Cheers,
Ben.

RagManX · Post by **RagManX** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 3:24 pm

Hmmm, interesting topic. I found fluxbox after trying a number of desktop environments and window managers when I got gentoo up and running. I never really looked in to the documentation. I just guessed that ~/.fluxbox would have my configuration info, and went from there. I don't use a wallpaper, and run almost everything fullscreen. So I just changed into the .fluxbox directory and started editting files until I got the system running the way I wanted it. I personally don't have a need for any helpful configuration tool for flux, but I can see why others would want one.

RagManX

shredluc · Post by **shredluc** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 11:40 pm

Hi guys, thanks for your input. Hopefully this thread will help newb's select a nice WM or DE with the input of experienced users. As for me, i have to say that once i got over the hurdle of learning Fluxbox, it became much more simple. I still have my little pet peeves, but in the long run, i like it the best out of all DM and WM's. One thing i hate is that we dont have a DE that looks, feels and acts like Fluxbox, while giving you the ability to put icons on the desktop like Gnome or KDE. Thanks guys.

L-Chamber · Post by **L-Chamber** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 12:46 am

While it may be more of the same (editing config files,etc), check out iDesk if you'd like icons on your desktop. I'm one of many who use a Fluxbox,iDesk,Rox combo as an alternative to a full Gnome/KDE environ.

I think there is also something similar to iDesk, called FBDesk, which is slightly easier/faster to configure, but may not have the eyecandy features that iDesk does.

There is an attempt to intergrate idesk,rox and flux together with Fluxspace, though I've never had time to look into it very far.

Hope this helps.