FluxBox is impressive! (Or: Tabbed windows in KDE?)

[jot-87]

I\ve always favoured Kwin and KDE before any other Window sManager or Desktop Environment I\ve tried, but I\ve bcome quite impressed with FluxBox recently.

I love KDE because of all the changes and things you can do to just about everything. I love changing settings and trying new combinations. But in Fluxbox I've found something that I didn't know existed but that I've missed: those tab things on the window!

I don't like minimising windows, and shading works OK sometimes, but I've always thought it would be neat if you could groups several programs in the same window. This isn't possible to achieve in KWin by any chance?

I also tested fluxbox on SLAX, and I just love SLAX and it's default fluxbox theme!

Another thing that would be neat (IMO) is to place the window titlebar to the left instead of on top... Or perhaps have the title on the top and the buttons to the right...

[elderdays]

I love fluxbox myself. I try new wm's sometimes but always come back to flux or windowmaker. BTW, I was trying out fvwm the other day and had a theme going like what you were saying with the title bar on the left. I don't remember what it was called but its out there for sure.

[timothykaine]

Heres a Sawfish one: http://themes.freshmeat.net/projects/elberg/

It exists. Keep on Googlin...

I, myself, am quite partial to XFCE. No matter how much resources it sucks up in newer versions, I keep going back. :p

P.S. I love your Rocky & Bullwinkle style title. Intentional or not, it gave me a laugh.

[blackbelt_jones]

It occurs to me that I haven't tried fluxbox on my new PC, which has 3.0 Ghz and 1 GB of RAM. Back when I had 266 Mhz and 150 MB RAM, I thought Fluxbox was da BOMB!

I think I'll give it a another look. Resources or no resources, Fluxbox is unique in my experience for its flexibility, its originality, and its elegant simplicity.

[jot-87]

I think I'll be using fluxbox now and then but sticking to KDE for the most part... Unless I find some new cool features in Fluxbox... for example, is it possible to by default focus a window when clicking on it without raising it? I'll sure miss the tabs in KDE... and the other window properties in fluxbox... I knew I shouldn't have tried anything else but KDE :)

Oh well, I can live with choice :) I can hardly stand using windows XP in school, i don't like it at all, you can't change or chose anything! Unfortunately I must use it because SLAX won't connect to the network, and DSL is too ugly (IMO).

I'll have to try XFCE again, it's been long since last time.

[timothykaine]

Originally posted by jot-87
Oh well, I can live with choice :) I can hardly stand using windows XP in school, i don't like it at all, you can't change or chose anything! Unfortunately I must use it because SLAX won't connect to the network, and DSL is too ugly (IMO).

I'll have to try XFCE again, it's been long since last time.

You could try Xfld. Its basically just Knoppix but with XFCE 4.2 as its default window manager.

[blackbelt_jones]

Originally posted by jot-87

Oh well, I can live with choice :) I can hardly stand using windows XP in school, i don't like it at all, you can't change or chose anything! Unfortunately I must use it because SLAX won't connect to the network, and DSL is too ugly (IMO).

I'll have to try XFCE again, it's been long since last time.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. Are you using SLAX and DSL as live CDs on XP machines st school? Have you tried other live distros? What kind of network do you mean?

[jot-87]

Yep, I use Live-CDs at school. Knoppix works but requires a regular sized CD, DSL works but doesn't include the software I want and the themes/colors are too boring and SLAX works but doesn't connect to the schools network (meaning I cannot access the internet). Maybe I can set up the network manually...
XFCE doesn't have to be on a live CD, I can test it at home. (Once I get BIOS to detect my HDD again, and I've re-partioned it and reinstalled everything, that is.)

[blackbelt_jones]

Originally posted by jot-87
Knoppix works but requires a regular sized CD,

As opposed to what? Are you referring to the the fact that the Knoppix iso is something like two MB bigger than my CD-Rs? What's up with that?

Anyway, you've provided me with an opportunity to once again trot out my favorite link, the Live CD List (http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php) There's about 200 live CD distros to choose from here. You ought to be able to find something that works for you.

If your school has fairly new computers, I reccomend Kanotix (http://kanotix.com/info/index.php?lang=en) I have a dozen live CDs, and Kanotix has turned out to be the one that has the applications that I need again and again, too often to be coincidence . If your school has older CPUs, you might want to take a look at bioknoppix (http://bioknoppix.hpcf.upr.edu/), which is supposed to be for molecular biologists, but seems to pretty closely follow knoppix 3.3, which DOES fit on a 700 MB disk.

Anyway-- like I always say when trotting out the list-- if you have access to broadband and can afford some CD-Rs there's no reason not to try as many live CDs as it takes to find something perfect.

Originally posted by jot-87


I love KDE because of all the changes and things you can do to just about everything.

My reason for preferring Gnome is that if I set the panel to a certain size, I can get icons indicating exactly what is running in the workspaces that are not active... is that clear enough? This is important for me, because I like to have everything in its own workspace.

Is there a way to do something like that in KDE?

Tried Fluxbox last night, and since I no longer really need the advantage of less use of resources, it doesn't seem worth the effort of getting used to Fluxbox for me.

(Next day)

Here's (http://linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=44) a link to a page where you can download Knoppix 3.6, which weighs in at a nice reasonable 700 mbs. I just burned a copy myself.

[jot-87]

Thanks for the links, I\ve already looked for a distro at that site you mentioned, I'll keep on tryinguntill I find one that I like.

The thing is that I want the linux distro to fit onto my 193MB CD, Knoppix and the others usally require 700. Too big to fit into my pocket.

My reason for preferring Gnome is that if I set the panel to a certain size, I can get icons indicating exactly what is running in the workspaces that are not active... is that clear enough? This is important for me, because I like to have everything in its own workspace.
Hmm... I think I know what you mean... And if I do, you can do that in KDE with "pager", you can even get miniatures of the windows.