fluxbox iconbar trick

Fluxbox has no way for changing the order of the list of windows on the iconbar. The most recently opened window always shows up last on the list. I like to have the windows organized by workspace; if I have one app running on Workspace 1 and something else running on Workspace 2, for example, I want the window on Workspace 1 to show up first on the iconbar, even if that app wasn't the first one started.

Someone came up with the script below. The idea is that it hides and redraws the active window, and moves the window to the end of the list on the iconbar. The script requires the xdotool package.

#!/bin/sh
# designed to be used with a keyboard shortcut
# in ~/.fluxbox/keys that could be:
# Control Shift Mod4 X :Exec /home/username/bin/move-to-end-of-taskbar.sh
xdotool getactivewindow windowunmap windowmap

This is not an ideal solution, but it does allow for rearranging the windows, so it isn't a bad workaround.

Source: https://bgstack15.wordpress.com/2019/09/05/rearrange-windows-on-iconbar-in-fluxbox/

Many thanks to "bgstack15" for putting this out there!

distraction-free fluxbox

I installed Fluxbox to use in Kubuntu 20.04. I wanted to keep things clean and simple. Besides the fluxbox package and its dependencies, I added numlockx and dmenu. I've got a trimmed down root menu, with entries for only a few apps:

No cute icons on this desktop. Here's Konsole showing my neofetch, with a couple of windows shaded, and dmenu in action along the top of the screen:

For KDE Plasma apps to look right in Fluxbox, I added the following line to the ~/.fluxbox/startup file:

export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=kde
 

A middle click on the desktop brings up the handy Workspaces menu:

I like the distraction-free feel of this setup. I'm not sure how long before I get tired of the plain background provided by the zimek_darkblue Style I've chosen, but it's nice for now. As usual, I relied heavily on man fluxbox, my saved config files from previous Fluxbox setups, and my notes. Here's the contents of my ~/.fluxbox/menu file, for those might want to make use of it:

# Revised fluxbox menu

[begin] (fluxbox)

   [exec] (firefox) {firefox}
   [exec] (konsole) {konsole}
   [exec] (double commander) {doublecmd}
   [exec] (dmenu [mod4+space]) {dmenu_run}

   [submenu] (fluxbox) {}
      [config] (Config)
      [workspaces] (Workspaces)
      [submenu] (styles)
         [stylesdir] (/usr/share/fluxbox/styles)
         [stylesdir] (~/.fluxbox/styles)
      [end]         
      [reconfig] (reconfigure)
      [restart] (restart)
   [end]

   [submenu] (exit) {exit}
      [exit] (logout)
      [exec] (reboot) {systemctl reboot}
      [exec] (poweroff) {systemctl poweroff}
   [end]

[end]

theming fix

I've added the Audacious music player to Kubuntu 20.04, but when I started it up, it looked like this:

Not good. Toolbar buttons don't even show up. This is KDE Plasma 5.18.4. Under System Settings > Appearance, the Global Theme is set to Breeze Dark, as is the Plasma Style. Application Style is set to Breeze.

From the Application Style window, I clicked on the "Configure GNOME/GTK Application Style..." button down at the bottom of the window. In the next window, I could see that the GTK2 and GTK3 themes were set to Breeze, and there was a preview:

I changed the GTK2 and GTK3 themes to Breeze Dark:

Issue fixed:

fluxbox in mx

The February 15 point release of MX includes a Fluxbox session along with the default Xfce. I took a quick look at Fluxbox in MX-19.1 in a live session, but I'll take another look in a few days because it looks like another point release is imminent. Some shots from the older point release:

I don't like that the default menu uses descriptions instead of the application names.

I chose a different desktop wallpaper from the selection that's provided (menu > Look > Background):

Very nice! Looking forward to the next release.

focal, installed

I finally got around to installing Kubuntu 20.04 LTS ("Focal Fossa"). I went with the "Minimal installation" option, which gives me a fair amount of control over what goes into the installed system. I elected to "Download updates while installing Kubuntu" and to "Install third-party software for graphics and Wi-Fi hardware and additional media formats". I chose the "Manual" installation type and set up the partitions myself.

The installation itself went quickly and painlessly. After that, I spent quite a bit of time configuring and customizing things to taste, and now I've got a system that differs quite a bit from the default setup I tested out in the live session.

One thing that was bugging me was that I don't really want to mess around with Ubuntu's controversial snap packages at this time, and I didn't know if there were any snaps present in my new installation. I ran the following command to check:

$ snap list
No snaps are installed yet. Try 'snap install hello-world'.

No snaps, but then I ran the apt search snapd command, which showed that the snapd package was in fact present. I took care of that by running sudo apt purge snapd. Also, I did some other cleaning:

$ rm -rf ~/snap
$ sudo rm -rf /snap
$ sudo rm -rf /var/snap
$ sudo rm -rf /var/lib/snapd

I've removed some other things, like unattended-upgrades, vlc, snapd, muon, and plasma-discover. And I added some of my favorite apps: ntp, localepurge, geany, doublecmd-qt, audacious, nomacs, geeqie, mc, synaptic, inxi, libreoffice-writer, libreoffice-calc, neofetch.

I'm quite pleased with what I've seen so far. Kubuntu LTS releases have worked out very well for me in the past; as much as I love Debian and Arch, I've been running Kubuntu on my "primary" computer, and Focal Fossa looks even better than previous releases. Here's a link to a review of Kubuntu 20.04 LTS by the great Dedoimedo. Enjoy!