The third (and final) release candidate for Fluxbox 1.0 has been released not too long ago. “This release has lots of new feature and lots of bug fixes. More extended window manager hints support, support for mouse buttons in keys file, language updates and much more.” More information is in the changelog.
Fluxbox was the first windowmanager I actaully liked on Linux. Before that I wasn’t too thrilled about the different window management schemes I had tried in the past. To be honest I never messed with any of the other box window managers so Flux was the first one I tried and it is a work of art in my opinion. It is very slim and has loads of cool features for power users. Eventually I switched to WindowMaker because the window management is superior in my opinion and the level of control is even greater, not to mention it starts up quicker than flux. I’m a full fledged GNOME user now that I have a modern machine but I still miss the amazing customizability of both Flux and WindowMaker though.
I was a long time Blackbox user and later migrated to Flux. I never really got into WindowMaker, but I am curious, have you ever tried XFCE?
It is still small enough to be lumped in with the other light weight DE but offers usability in the ballpark of Gnome.
It is my current light weight DE of choice and I have really been quite impressed with it.
Edited 2007-03-31 07:22
I tried XFCE, with very minimal setup, only xfce4-panel with xfwm4 and xfce-menu-plugin.
Generally very nice, but lacks a lot of features I used to live with used fluxbox.
here, take a look:
http://bsdforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47695
“I was a long time Blackbox user and later migrated to Flux. I never really got into WindowMaker, but I am curious, have you ever tried XFCE?”
While I use WindowMaker at home (for some years now happily), at work we have some BSD installations with XFCE 3 (which resembles the look & feel of classical CDE) and XFCE 4. My boss likes version 3 much and has no problems using it, allthough he’s very “computer illiterate”; I’m using XFCE 4 and found it can be configured in a very good manner so it fits professional needs, still looking modern.
The FreeBSD live system CD FreeSBIE features both XFCE 4 and Blackbox; I’d like to see Fluxbox included in a new release because it’s really great. 🙂
I have used XFCE, but not since the 4.0 beta days. It seems like a lightweight GNOME which is a good option for some machines, but GNOME flies on my new machine and I feel like XFCE would be a downgrade at this point although it has progressed quite rapidly.
RC3 is avialable since ELEVEN days
Lots of great new features and bugfixes, for example Mouse Buttons are now supported by ~/.fluxbox.keys, so I can have very comfortable bindings for ALT + Scroll_UP to make volume higher and ALT + Scroll_DOWN to take it lower.
Great new feature for :CustomMenu For example I never used Workspaces default menu with Middle Mouse and now I can bind my utilities on Middle, and include the same file info default fluxbox menu to not have two identical places to edit.
There were also some minor changes in look, for example vertical taskbar is now upside down:
http://vermaden.proplayer.pl/gfx/screenshots/vermaden-fluxbox-taskb…
http://vermaden.proplayer.pl/gfx/screenshots/vermaden-fluxbox-taskb…
also latest changelog:
http://svn.berlios.de/wsvn/fluxbox/trunk/ChangeLog?op=file&rev=0&sc…
In short words, best release ever.
Edited 2007-03-30 23:57
the vertical taskbar still looks really akward to me…
would be nice to see some composite support on this wm
“””
would be nice to see some composite support on this wm
“””
I thought Fluxbox was supposed to be minimalist. Even on my Gnome desktop, I found that the composited effects, when I had them turned on, seemed awfully “maximalist” even in the context of a very non-minimal desktop.
I’m all for people having what they want, of course. It just seems and odd request.
Wobbly windows, animated cubes, beam up effects, and drop shadows… in Fluxbox?
Or is there some minimalist way that compositing could be used that I have not considered? Because if there is, I might just like it. My gripe with composited desktops has always been that they tend to be too “in yer face”.
Edited 2007-04-01 19:58
I hope this release will be included in a new release of the FreeSBIE live system CD. I always liked Fluxbox on slower machines, because it’s really fast and has a very good keyboard support which allows fast operations instead of clicking around.
Nice release, good work!
…that I don’t think I’ll really ever use anything else. And I have a relatively new, fast computer.
I’ve been toying with the idea of trying Openbox, but my needs are met with Fluxbox, and if it ain’t broke, why fix it?
Same here. Fast computer and all. I try the new ones every now and then only to discover fluxbox is still king. Perhaps Beryl or Kwin will gain on it eventually. Perhaps… 🙂
I loved Fluxbox, but once I switched to Openbox, I fell in love to an even greater degree. Customizable in many ways, and faster. Loads almost instantaneously on even old hardware, while Fluxbox tends to take about 2-5 seconds.
I also prefer the theming engine for Openbox.
Regardless, both are great WMs with a lot to offer.
For those who didn’t know Fluxbox has been used for a while now as the window manager on IBM’s hmc (management station) for pSeries. Just thought I’d mention this before someone asks why we need another wm 🙂
Interesting info, what version of the HMC is it ? I don’t remember seing FB on the P5 HMC that i could briefly get my hands on, but something all java based IIRC.
Wasn’t Flux pushed on the HMC because of perf issues ?
I think I’ve read somewhere in a red book that it can become pretty sluggish when the number of managed servers increase past a certain treshold, but i cannot find back where exactly..
Still, FB has been my WM of choice for a few years, even on a modern computer. I’m very pleased to see it’s maintained and evolves all the way to 1.0, even if it has never been unstable or too buggy for me.
I would definitely enjoy having a matching sleek looking file manager at my right click (like Explorer in BBlean – http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/)
but meanwhile, i can only recommend as a good companion the excellent Xfe, which is also about to reach the gold status:
http://roland65.free.fr/xfe/
“I would definitely enjoy having a matching sleek looking file manager at my right click […] but meanwhile, i can only recommend as a good companion the excellent Xfe, which is also about to reach the gold status:”
Personally, I prefer the famous Midnight Commander with proper mc.ext settings. Most file management operations could be called “source target operations”, so the strange tree and list view (with which I still have problems) isn’t very intuidive for me. Copying files via the edit buffer… strange…
Xfe is quite nice, because it can be set up to work as described above: http://roland65.free.fr/xfe/images/screenshot-s4.png
But that’s what we have choice in Linux and UNIX for. I would not use an OS that predicts one file manager I am forced to use. 🙂
Yeah, the actual management app (websm – or web based system manager) is Java based, but the “desktop” it is loaded on is Fluxbox. IBM made a good choice there, they needed something minimal just to open some application windows and some terminal windows – why go with anything else.
I think we’re still on version 4.x. But I don’t install the HMC’s myself and I’m on vacation so I can’t check 🙂
Yeah unfortunately it requires yet another toolkit (Fox-tk). Wasn’t there supposed to be a project to make an entire desktop environment based on Fox, I wonder what happened to that ?
Sorry to go off-topic, but under OSNews4, the link in that quote has </div> tacked on the end. For me anyway.
…too bad I like OpenBox better, but am saddened that it’s not available on OpenBSD. So, I guess I’ll have to use Fluxbox instead.
…too bad I like OpenBox better, but am saddened that it’s not available on OpenBSD. So, I guess I’ll have to use Fluxbox instead.
Not available? I fail to believe you’re using OpenBSD and you don’t know how to compile from source. That’s what ‘Open Source’ is all about, there are no limits. See if you can follow the four steps to compile the source on OBSD here:
http://fluxbox.org/docbook/en/fluxbox-docs.html#AEN108
fak3r