Alright i bring you a post about another Window Manager. this one is about Fluxbox, its another box window manger that follows the black box code base, has plain text config files, used XPM for the pixmaps in the window decorations, and has a slew of built in utilities that other WM’s may not have. For instance this WM boasts the following:

1. Panel
2. auto BG set
3. pager applet
4. system tray
5. clock
6. menu and window transparency (real with xcompmgr-dan
7. a, and pseudo out of the box <- pun unintended)
8. Workspace warping

And a bunch of others that I’m not thinking of right now.

Ive been using it for a while now, and needless to say ive grown to enjoy the integration with everything. More importantly, this window manger also has a team working on a composition manager thats not a buggy piece of crap like the current two options that have certain “issues”. Its call FBcompose

GIT Repo: http://git.fluxbox.org/fluxbox_gediminas.git/

Tarball: http://ompldr.org/vYjVmdQ

From what i can tell its not entirely stable YET, but its still beta level, and they just started production on it. But this proposes a possible active modular composite mange for non composite window manager’s so I’m hoping they get it working :D.

Back to Fluxbox how ever. From my extended use of the 1.1.1 version in the Debian Squeeze repositories, its a solid as a rock, and functions just as you would have expected. If you looking for a good window manager then i suggest you try this one out.

Screenshot:

my personal preference on this subject is The Great and mighty

PekWM: http://pekwm.org/projects/pekwm

Its good looking, fast, has a root menu, and due to the nature of WM’s its modular as ever. Its config files are in simple plain text, and it has great documentation with in the files. Heres how to get it.

sudo apt-get install pekwm

that it reboot and your done. Select a pekwm session from GDM or KDM or SLiM or what ever you use to launch your system. After that you can get to editing your config files to suit your needs. Ive got my set up pretty similar to OpenBox, but others may differ in what they like.

A couple of extra things i reccommend on a WM is :

Panel: tint2

Filemanager: rox-filer

wallpaper: Nitrogen

Monitor: Conky

To install all of that heres the command.

sudo apt-get install rox-filer tint2 conky-all nitrogen

Get to configuring every one lol.

Sorry for not writing to much lately I’ve been busy working and a whole other mess of crap that I don’t want to really talk about right now. So let’s get back to Linux related shtuff.

For you torrenters out there theirs a great lightweight client I just found called flush. It’s in the debian repos and reminds me highly of the torrent 2.x series. I get the same connectivity as transmission and it’s way lighter and simpler.

For ipblocking needs for peer to peer my favorite option is and always will be mobloquer and block control.

http://moblock-deb.sourceforge.net/

It’s got a really nice qt interface and direct GUIs. It’s my preferred app for this purpose.

For those that are sick of network manager, there’s a great client called Wicd, it has a cli interface, ncurses interface, and a Gtk GUI interface. It’s again a refreshingly simple approach to the gnome equivalent. Well that wraps up this post for now I’ll come back to it later and fix it up a bit.

That is something everyone in linux needs to learn how to manage. If youve got lord know’s how many libraries installed and you only use 1 its a bit stupid to keep the X amount of gig’s of files on your system for now reason. At least, that’s what the guys who made DEBFOSTER thought when they made their utility. This neat little program makes it easy to keep your system lean and mean with little to no hassle.

What does it do?

the first time you run this program it takes and asks you what you would like to keep installed to your computer, and you then have the option to purge out everything you don’t want installed. Its all CLI, but its got good man pages to help you learn.

Lets Begin

alright first things first lets install it.

su root

apt-get install debfoster

Sudoers

sudo apt-get install debfoster

the open a terminal and as ROOT run debfoster. The first time you use it as i said, it goes through everything you have installed. Its up to you what you keep.

And that’s it enjoy your clean system :D.

Alright this is going to show you how to install the Backport’s Repo’s for the latest release of iceweasel and the MUCH newer 2.6.39-bpo kernel on Debian Squeeze. Lets get started.

First open your sources file

su root

nano /etc/apt/sources.list

For Sudoers

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

The Repo’s that you will need to add

## DEBIAN SQUEEZE BACKPORTS

deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main contrib non-free

deb http://mozilla.debian.net/ squeeze-backports iceweasel-release

press Ctrl+O to save nano and Ctrl+X to close nano.
after this run this for the GPG key for iceweasel

su root

wget -O- -q http://mozilla.debian.net/archive.asc | gpg --import

gpg --export -a 06C4AE2A | apt-key add -

apt-get update

For Sudoers

wget -O- -q http://mozilla.debian.net/archive.asc | gpg --import

gpg --export -a 06C4AE2A | sudo apt-key add -

sudo apt-get update

Now run these commands

su root
apt-get install xulrunner-7.0 && apt-get install iceweasel
For Sudoers
sudo apt-get install xulrunner-7.0 && sudo apt-get install iceweasel

you now have a working Iceweasel that is up to date. For those that dont know iceweasel is the Debian re-branded Firefox.

Now the 2.6.39 Kernel. This can be tricky. Im Going to assume you use the open source driver’s, or have an intel card.

Since i don’t know which architecture your going to be running this will be done through synaptic.

open a terminal and type

su root

synaptic

For Sudoers

sudo synaptic

then search the following term

2.6.39-bpo

that should bring up the headers and image, install both and reboot. You now how the latest Debian Official kernel and iceweasel.

        Alright this is going to be the last basic’s post. After this I’m diving into the Debian scene only, and the next few posts wont apply to non-debian based system’s. As the Title say’s this is going to show you how to get your system ready for use (ie: upgrading and installing common software).

Upgrading/Updating

For Ubuntu/Linux Mint/Sudoing Debian user’s

to update

sudo apt-get update

to upgrade

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

For non-sudo Debian users

to update

su root

apt-get update

to upgrade

su root

apt-get dist-upgrade

For Fedora/Redhat/CentOS/Scientific Linux user’s

to do both (only one command)

su -c ‘yum update’

This will get you upto the latest software for your system. This Method uses the terminal (Yes there are GUI method’s out there, but i never use them because there a lot less stable. [its going to take a crap load to crash a terminal])

Installing Software

        There’s a few methods i use to do this, one GUI one command line.

Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint user’s

GUI

sudo synaptic

CLI (replace package with the name of the program)

sudo apt-get install package

For Fedora/Redhat/CentOS/Scientific Linux user’s (replace package with the name of the program)

Again only CLI

su -c ‘yum install package’

that pretty much covers the basics of Linux system upkeep and use. Ill link to some other good guides i know of that go into the in depth details of certain things.

Unofficial Fedora Guide

Debian Wiki

Ubuntu Wiki

Please note that all of these respective Distributions also have great forum’s to help answer all of your question’s. So if you encounter something just awful they should help you.

        Alright lets start off with the most basic aspect of the Operating System. As you may have guessed by the title that is of course INSTALLATION!!!! This word either makes you excited or strikes fear into your very soul. There is two very different methods of doing this. One is you just wipe the drive and install the Linux distro of your choice, Two is to setup a dual boot with Both Linux and the other Operating System.

Situation Number One

        This is just installing the OS over everything else. This is by far the easiest method, and least PITA.

1. download your distro’s ISO
2. Burn it to a disk/USB
3. Boot from the disk/USB
4. Install and select to over write everything

That’s all fairly self explanatory. Lets assume your on Windows 7 currently. You first Download your iso, probably Ubuntu at this point since your also probably very new to Linux, that’s easy. Next, you grab a CD or USB drive.

CD Method

        You insert the BLANK cd into the disk drive of your computer and then windows walks you through how to burn a disk. Its fairly straight forward.

USB Method

        You insert your USB drive and it mount’s. What your going to want to do is this:

1. click the start button
2. search for “disk management”
3. launch the application
4. Select your thumb drive
5. Format it to FAT32

Next thing your going to want to do is download Unetbootin. After this do the following:

1. Go to where you downloaded the file
2. Launch the application
3. select ISO from the options Unetbootin gives.
4. Select your ISO in the path selector
5. Select your USB drive letter
6. Click ok and let Unetbootin do I’ts thing.

that covers the making of the Linux boot disk.

Booting From It

        Alright this can be different from machine to machine. The one method you can use on all of them is to select it in the BIOS. The bios is something you usually never see unless you press the Delete key (its usually Delete maybe different for your computer). From there here is what you do.

CD Method

        Navigate over to Boot Priority and set your Disk bay to the highest priority so it picks up on the disk. Boom your done. Exit and Save the BIOS.

USB Method

        Navigate to the HDD boot Priority THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE. From there select your usb drive to boot first. Then Boom your done. Exit and Save the BIOS.

Installing The OS

        Simply select install, click use entire drive, and let the installer take its course your done. 

Next up is for those of you wanting to Dual Boot.

Situation Number Two

        Here are your Step’s.

        This is just installing the OS beside everything else.

1. download your distro’s ISO
2. Burn it to a disk/USB
3. Boot from the disk/USB
4. Install Next to your Window’s

That’s all fairly self explanatory. Lets assume your on Windows 7 currently. You first Download your iso, probably Ubuntu at this point since your also probably very new to Linux, that’s easy. Next, you grab a CD or USB drive.

CD Method

        You insert the BLANK cd into the disk drive of your computer and then windows walks you through how to burn a disk. Its fairly straight forward.

USB Method

        You insert your USB drive and it mount’s. What your going to want to do is this:

1. click the start button
2. search for “disk management”
3. launch the application
4. Select your thumb drive
5. Format it to FAT32

Next thing your going to want to do is download Unetbootin. After this do the following:

1. Go to where you downloaded the file
2. Launch the application
3. select ISO from the options Unetbootin gives.
4. Select your ISO in the path selector
5. Select your USB drive letter
6. Click ok and let Unetbootin do I’ts thing.

that covers the making of the Linux boot disk.

Booting From It

        Alright this can be different from machine to machine. The one method you can use on all of them is to select it in the BIOS. The bios is something you usually never see unless you press the Delete key (its usually Delete maybe different for your computer). From there here is what you do.

CD Method

        Navigate over to Boot Priority and set your Disk bay to the highest priority so it picks up on the disk. Boom your done. Exit and Save the BIOS.

USB Method

        Navigate to the HDD boot Priority THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE. From there select your usb drive to boot first. Then Boom your done. Exit and Save the BIOS.

Installing The OS

        Instead of clicking to use entire disk select install along side and everything should go as Planned. Please note for beginners I Recommend one of the following.

• Ubuntu
• Linux Mint
• Fedora (if your computer savy)

The reason is they make dual booting much more automated, and the all have GUI installers. It’s just much easier to do.

Hope this helps someone lol :D, enjoy the Linux love.

        To be honest this is just a blog I’m starting for fun to show case my Linux setup and how I’ve gotten it to this point. HOWEVER, if you choose to read through this a bit you may learn a thing or two, and save your self from some headache.

So, what distro is it that I’m using?

        Well what I use is called Crunchbang Linux, and its based on the latest Debian stable (whats now known as Squeeze). It’s about as fast and lean as it get’s, and I’ve taken this little guy and hacked and smacked and duck taped all I can to turn it into something that’s truly personalized to my taste. 

Here’s a basic software rundown:

• PekWM
• Tint2
• Rox-Filer
• Conky-All
• MPD (with Sonata)
• And a whole other mess of stuff no one cares about.

What will I show you how to do?

        Well to be honest I’m going to show you how to do everything from syncing to backports to installing the Nvidia Run Script to making a bashrc. This blog is going to cover every aspect of what I know about Linux so you don’t have to go through the headache of nuking multiple system’s by accident when your just learning how everything works. You’ll learn about sudo and learn to read the Apt output before you agree, AND if I’m lucky you’ll enjoy doing it to.