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Arch - Fluxbox


Hedon James

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Hedon James

I've been wanting to check out Arch for awhile and see what all the fuss is about. Inspired by Ray's recent Arch exploits, and encouraged by SB, I decided to combine a couple curiousities into a single VM project...and installed ArchBang in a VM, then loaded up a Fluxbox DE (which is slightly more interesting to me than OpenBox, although not nearly as popular or well documented).

 

First impressions...Arch is a strange bird to me. I've been a Debian guy since my first days as a Linuxer, with some minor dabbling with RPMs. In Debian, I find and install software through the Software Center, synaptic, DEB files, Gdebi, apt and apt-get. And I know which is the most appropriate for the current situation. In Arch, there's pacman. If I can't get it with pacman I don't know what to do. And what's with all the "flags" in pacman? Do I always use -S flag? And what does flags of -Syy mean? Isn't that redundant?

 

I no longer know which packages I need, or which flags to apply. It's like typing before I learned to type...hunt & peck! LOL! On the flip side, this thing sure is responsive, ESPECIALLY for a VM!

 

Second impressions...the spartan interface of Openbox/Fluxbox doesn't provide any measure of hand-holding. If it isn't in the right-click menu, all I can do is open a file manager, browse to /usr/share/applications and see what I have to work with. I feel like a newbie all over again! A little frustrating, but with a little Linux experience to draw upon this time around. It'll probably get better over time, as I get more familiar with Arch's conventions, and I can certainly see the potential of Fluxbox as a "barebones" DE to build upon. Hmmm...

 

Despite the initial hardships and the learning curve, I'm fairly impressed with Arch and Flux. Once I get more comfortable with it, perhaps I'll look for some metal to install it on! B) Here's what I've got after only 2-3 days of installation, reading up, tweaking, modding, etc:

 

RRf4lzZ.jpg

Edited by Hedon James
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Hedon James

Yep, understood SB! Don't really have the time to delve into pure vanilla Arch at this time, so ArchBang seemed like the perfect candidate to dip my toes into the Arch pool, combined with my interest in the Fluxbox DE/WM. Fluxbox had been giving me fits in Ubuntu/Debian, with missing packages/tools, etc... Worked like a charm in Arch though, with all the referenced tools and CLI commands available, performing exactly like the Wiki & Forums suggested it would. Made a world of difference...

 

I'm using the ArchBang acclimation experience as a gauge of how interested I am in a pure Arch install. I love the rolling release schedule, but I'm concerned about the "bleeding edge" philosophy. I have no issues with maintaining/tweaking my boxes, on occasion or as needed; but I can't afford for them to "need" it too often!

 

But I don't know what I don't know and I figured I've theorized about it enough. I saw an opportunity to kill 2-3 birds with 1 stone and went for it...I'm glad I did. If you took my Debian/Ubuntu boxes and cold-turkey Arched me, I'd be fighting the process every step. Just hoping to gradually learn more about the Arch way and let the path lead me to where it goes...

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I have to agree with Josh that there is really only one Arch. Whether you go through the process once or twenty times, in VBox or on the rails, with a wired or wifi connection and no matter what packages you install it's great fun and you learn a tremendous amount about the nuts and bolts of Linux as you do. You'll be using pacman all the way so that gives you a lot of practice with this fantastic package manager.

Also HJ if I may say so you are a great tweaker, configurer, theme installer and respin artist so Arch will be right up your alley.

I am a good technical guy but I suck at desktop configuration. Most of my Arch installs look like vanilla Gnome or Xfce. I have found that the "Arch-compatible" distro Manjaro has some beautiful looks in the desktops I like. Plus I still get to use pacman. But Manjaro, Apricity, Archbang, Antergos - as nice as they all are - are not really Arch.

So I encourage you to take the time to do a real Arch install following Josh's tutorial or one like this by a different Josh (I assume):

 

http://wideaperture.net/blog/?p=4503

 

It's great fun, you'll learn something (guaranteed), you'll feel really smart when it all works. Then you can tweak it to uour heart's content, or just try one of the derivatives and see if they meet your needs too.

I felt the same way when after using Vector Linux I installed Slackware, or even after Ubuntu and Linux Mint did a Debian net install. But neither of those experiences compare with installing Arch.

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Hedon James

Thanks for the kind words Ray. I'm not as technical, so together we'd make an awesome yin-yang team! FWIW, I'm not as strong with coming up with great ideas, but I'm EXCELLENT at recognizing someone else's good idea and turning it into a great one! Must be my OCD kicking in!

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securitybreach

Thanks but...do not follow my tutorial as it is really out of date. I need to update it but at the same time, it was simply a rewrite of the wiki based on what I do. It's kind of hard to make a all in one guide as there are so many different configurations you could do. Think of Archlinux like clay you mold into whatever best suites you. Basically you follow the Beginner's Guide and then the General Recommendations which gives an overview and points you to the specific wiki pages.

 

Now I know what you are thinking....it seems daunting at first but once you have done it, it may take some time but its actually pretty easy and straightforward. I would always suggest that a new Archer install Arch the regular way at least once to understand how distros are pieced together but the architect installer is nice if you need a quick setup.

 

Honestly, I find Archlinux to be a lot easier to maintain than other, "easier" distros.

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I've used your tutorial and it still works. There is an updated one referenced in there if I wanted to use it instead.

I changed a few things as I got more experienced - like using GRUB and installing the Guest Additions in VBox as my video driver.

It seemed a bit weird the first time installing manually but if you do it once or twice you understand what an installer does and besides, it makes it easier to figure out how to fix stuff if something goes wrong.

The most "fun" I had was getting a wifi connection to the Internet on the installer iso so that I could download the packages. Took me back to my earliest days with Ubuntu before Network Manager really handled wifi very well and you had to manually configure it if you wanted WPA encryption.

 

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_network_configuration

Edited by raymac46
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First impressions...Arch is a strange bird to me. I've been a Debian guy since my first days as a Linuxer, with some minor dabbling with RPMs. In Debian, I find and install software through the Software Center, synaptic, DEB files, Gdebi, apt and apt-get. And I know which is the most appropriate for the current situation. In Arch, there's pacman. If I can't get it with pacman I don't know what to do. And what's with all the "flags" in pacman? Do I always use -S flag? And what does flags of -Syy mean? Isn't that redundant?

 

If you can't get something with pacman, chances are it'll be on the Arch User Repository (https://aur.archlinux.org/). you can use git and makepkg to install / upgrade packages from there, but I'd suggest installing an AUR helper such as yaourt (https://archlinux.fr/yaourt-en) which will use pacman for regular packages, and do it's own thing for AUR packages. Yaourt automatically initiates sudo, so you'll need that set up as well, and the -Syua flag will upgrade everything. (By the way, -Syy is used to force re-sync the package database, while -Sy will only sync if the database is out of date).

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Hedon James

If you can't get something with pacman, chances are it'll be on the Arch User Repository (https://aur.archlinux.org/). you can use git and makepkg to install / upgrade packages from there, but I'd suggest installing an AUR helper such as yaourt (https://archlinux.fr/yaourt-en) which will use pacman for regular packages, and do it's own thing for AUR packages. Yaourt automatically initiates sudo, so you'll need that set up as well, and the -Syua flag will upgrade everything. (By the way, -Syy is used to force re-sync the package database, while -Sy will only sync if the database is out of date).

 

I was figuring out some of the flags. I had figured out -S -Syy and -Syu. I read the pacman man page and still can't figure out something I'm specifically looking for.

 

In Debian, if I'm looking for a package but not exactly sure what package I need/want, I can use

apt-cache search <alpha string>

to look for package names and/or descriptions that resemble the <alpha string> input. for example

apt-cache search virtualbox

will return ALL repository packages with "virtualbox" in the package name, or in the package description, allowing me to determine that I want "virtualbox-guest-utils", which is then installed with

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-guest-utils

and I'm good to go!

 

Does Arch/pacman have a similar command/tool/flag? If not, how would I accomplish this task in Arch? Do I have to go to the Arch package webpage everytime and search from there? Seems like a cumbersome way to do that...I have to believe that Arch has a better way and I just don't know about it...yet! ;-)

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Hedon James

aha...as I read the pacman manpage, I interpreted the -s flag to "search the existing installation" rather than "search the repo"! Thanks for the clarification!

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securitybreach

aha...as I read the pacman manpage, I interpreted the -s flag to "search the existing installation" rather than "search the repo"! Thanks for the clarification!

 

Good deal :thumbsup:

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saturnian

I did something similar, I started out by trying Chakra, Bridge Linux, and ArchBang. Just wanted to get a feel for things before I did a real Arch installation. For me, experimenting with those "derivatives" is what really sold me on Arch. Other people might frown on that approach, but it worked out great for me, especially for learning how to use pacman.

 

As for Openbox and Fluxbox, I did struggle with both of those early on, but these days they're both quite easy for me to set up. I save all my config files, and the next time I install Openbox of Fluxbox, I grab those saved files and just work from those. A few quick and easy edits and I'm good to go. Once you've got Fluxbox (or Openbox) set up the way you like it, it's usually no problem to use those files again and again, with a few minor changes here and there. I used to run CrunchBang, and the config files for Openbox from that installation came in handy, too.

 

I haven't done Fluxbox in Arch (yet) -- currently, my only Fluxbox installation is in openSUSE -- but I do have Openbox in Arch.

 

One more thing, I don't think that most people would wanna do this, but I like to add Openbox or Fluxbox to an installation that already has another DE -- usually KDE, but I've done it with Xfce, GNOME, LXDE. Then I can log into the Openbox session and I've got all those other apps there to work with. I don't know, that's just how I like to do it. Here's a shot of my Openbox desktop in Debian Jessie, with the tint2 panel.

 

jessie_openbox_kde_1.jpg

 

By the way, lots of different ways you can go if you want to add a panel. The tint2 version available in Arch is a newer version than the one available in Debian Stable, and allows for adding application launchers to the panel, which I think is pretty cool even though I don't really need 'em.

 

For my current Arch installation, I started out with Xfce, then later added LXDE, which of course brings in Openbox; here's a shot from the Openbox session, kinda gives you an idea of how I like to have things set up:

 

arch_openbox_1.jpg

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Hedon James

Thanks for sharing that Saturnian! I'm really digging Fluxbox and my head is swimming with ideas on how to customize it! The more I play with it, the more things I discover, and the more I like it! How is this not a more popular desktop environment?! LOL! I'm leaning towards a Fluxbox install on a mini/server distro, but adding LXDE components, like the lxpanel and lxappearance, and a major league kick-ass all-in-one file manager like Caja.

 

I've tinkered with tint but didn't really like it. But now that I've seen your tint setup, I'm thinking I need to look at it again. One of the last hurdles in a customization job for me is always a workspace switcher of some sort where I can look which workspace has that open application I'm looking for, and go directly to it. I either need to duplicate that functionality or change my workflow, but I can't see how to revamp my workflow without going backwards. I think your tint config just might work for me?! Thanks buddy!

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saturnian

Well, sorry, I got a bit off-topic there. In Fluxbox, how about the default panel -- or, "toolbar," as they call it? I set up my Fluxbox with three workspaces, and the iconbar shows icons for each running app, from all workspaces. Easy enough to switch workspaces by using the scroll wheel with the cursor on the desktop, or on the panel, or by using the PrevWorkspace or NextWorkspace arrow buttons, or by simply clicking on one of the application icons.

 

Here's my Fluxbox in openSUSE Leap 42.1:

 

fluxbox_opensuse_1.jpg

 

I've got KDE in openSUSE; added Fluxbox later.

 

I used to find it helpful to examine other users' config files. Here's my ~/.fluxbox/init file:

 

session.screen0.iconbar.iconWidth: 50
session.screen0.iconbar.iconTextPadding: 10
session.screen0.iconbar.usePixmap: true
session.screen0.iconbar.mode: {static groups}
session.screen0.iconbar.alignment: Left
session.screen0.window.focus.alpha: 255
session.screen0.window.unfocus.alpha: 200
session.screen0.toolbar.autoHide: false
session.screen0.toolbar.tools: prevworkspace, workspacename, nextworkspace, iconbar, systemtray, clock
session.screen0.toolbar.maxOver: false
session.screen0.toolbar.widthPercent: 91
session.screen0.toolbar.onhead: 1
session.screen0.toolbar.layer: Dock
session.screen0.toolbar.visible: true
session.screen0.toolbar.alpha: 200
session.screen0.toolbar.placement: BottomCenter
session.screen0.toolbar.height: 0
session.screen0.tab.placement: TopLeft
session.screen0.tab.width: 64
session.screen0.titlebar.left: Stick
session.screen0.titlebar.right: Minimize Maximize Close
session.screen0.slit.acceptKdeDockapps: true
session.screen0.slit.maxOver: false
session.screen0.slit.layer: Dock
session.screen0.slit.autoHide: false
session.screen0.slit.onhead: 0
session.screen0.slit.placement: RightBottom
session.screen0.slit.alpha: 255
session.screen0.tabs.usePixmap: true
session.screen0.tabs.maxOver: false
session.screen0.tabs.intitlebar: true
session.screen0.menu.alpha: 200
session.screen0.clientMenu.usePixmap: true
session.screen0.strftimeFormat: %b %e %H:%M
session.screen0.tabFocusModel: ClickToTabFocus
session.screen0.maxDisableMove: false
session.screen0.workspaceNames: workspace 1,workspace 2,workspace 3,
session.screen0.edgeSnapThreshold: 10
session.screen0.defaultDeco: NORMAL
session.screen0.noFocusWhileTypingDelay: 0
session.screen0.allowRemoteActions: false
session.screen0.clickRaises: true
session.screen0.focusModel: ClickFocus
session.screen0.windowMenu: /home/steve/.fluxbox/windowmenu
session.screen0.colPlacementDirection: TopToBottom
session.screen0.autoRaise: true
session.screen0.fullMaximization: false
session.screen0.windowPlacement: RowMinOverlapPlacement
session.screen0.workspaces: 3
session.screen0.rootCommand: fbsetbg -r /home/steve/wallpapers
session.screen0.focusSameHead: false
session.screen0.workspacewarping: true
session.screen0.tooltipDelay: 500
session.screen0.maxDisableResize: false
session.screen0.maxIgnoreIncrement: true
session.screen0.focusNewWindows: true
session.screen0.showwindowposition: false
session.screen0.rowPlacementDirection: LeftToRight
session.screen0.menuDelay: 200
session.screen0.opaqueMove: true
session.doubleClickInterval: 250
session.cacheMax: 200
session.styleFile: /usr/share/fluxbox/styles/zimek_darkblue
session.keyFile: ~/.fluxbox/keys
session.menuFile: ~/.fluxbox/menu
session.cacheLife: 5
session.colorsPerChannel: 4
session.slitlistFile: /home/steve/.fluxbox/slitlist
session.forcePseudoTransparency: true
session.configVersion: 13
session.tabPadding: 0
session.menuSearch: itemstart
session.ignoreBorder: false
session.tabsAttachArea: Window
session.styleOverlay: /home/steve/.fluxbox/overlay
session.appsFile: /home/steve/.fluxbox/apps
session.autoRaiseDelay: 250

 

And, ~/.fluxbox/menu, not much to it:

 

# Version 0.1 08.04.2003 - hvogel@hennevogel.de
# Version 0.2 07.12.2004 - hvogel@hennevogel.de

[begin] (Fluxbox Menu)
[exec] (firefox) {firefox}
[exec] (spacefm) {spacefm}
[exec] (konsole) {konsole}
[exec] (geany) {geany}
[include] (~/.fluxbox/menu.xdg)
[submenu] (Tools)
 [exec] (chromium) {chromium}	
 [exec] (dolphin) {dolphin}
 [exec] (mirage) {mirage}
 [exec] (geeqie) {geeqie}
 [exec] (spectacle) {spectacle}
 [exec] (gwenview) {gwenview}
 [exec] (kcalc) {kcalc}
 [exec] (konqueror) {kfmclient openProfile filemanagement}
 [exec] (YaST) {/usr/bin/xdg-su -c /sbin/yast2}
[end]
 [submenu] (Fluxbox Configuration) {}
		 [config] (Config)
		 [workspaces] (Workspace)
		 [submenu] (System-Styles) {Choose a style...}
				 [stylesdir] (/usr/share/fluxbox/styles)
		 [end]
[submenu] (User-Styles) {Choose a style...}
				 [stylesdir] (~/.fluxbox/styles)
		 [end]
 [end]
[exec] (Run Command) {fbrun}
[exec] (Random Wallpaper) {fbsetbg -r /home/steve/wallpapers}
[exec] (Lock Screen) {xlock}
[restart] (Restart) {}
[exit] (Logout)
[end]

 

No doubt some things are different for Fluxbox in Arch than in openSUSE, but most things are probably the same, just be sure to check man fluxbox, tons of info in there. And don't forget at the bottom of that man page, where it says:

 

SEE ALSO
 fluxbox-apps(5) fluxbox-keys(5) fluxbox-style(5) fluxbox-menu(5) fluxbox-remote(1)
 fbsetroot(1) fbsetbg(1) fbrun(1) startfluxbox(1)

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saturnian

Almost forgot, in Fluxbox you can combine windows with the tabbing feature:

 

fluxbox_openbox_2.jpg

 

Not the best screenshot, but hopefully you get the idea. Tabs for Geany, SpaceFM, and Konsole on the titlebar there. I don't actually use this feature much, but it comes in handy at times when you've got several apps running. How you do it might depend on the Fluxbox version (I seem to recall using "the middle mouse button" for this in the past), but here it's just a matter of moving the cursor to one window's titlebar, then hold down the ctrl key and drag the titlebar onto another window's titlebar. I guess the Arch wiki describes it better:

 

Tabbing and grouping

 

With at least two windows visible on your desktop use ctrl +left click on the upper window tab of one window and drag it into the other open window. The two windows will now be grouped together with window tabs in the upper window tab bar. You may now perform a window operation that will affect the entire window "group". To reverse the tabbing use Ctrl+left click on a tab and drag it to an empty space on the desktop.

 

https://wiki.archlin...ng_and_grouping

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Hedon James

The Fluxbox toolbar looks like it would serve my purpose quite well, except that it doesn't look very good on the right screen edge, which is where I would like/need it. Sounds OCD, I know, but I am SO USED to a "hot corner" or a Brightside "edge action" that I find myself constantly moving my mouse to the right edge to make things happen. If I used a toolbar on the top or bottom edges, the Flux toolbar would be perfect in its default configuration! So I'm either changing a deeply ingrained workflow to accomodate a tool, or I'm still looking to forge a tool for that workflow. You're tint really catches my eye. I think I'm gonna hafta play with both and see what emerges as a preference.

 

The tabbed toolbars are interesting as heck to me! I've never heard of this feature until Flux, let alone imagine how it works. But I can certainly see myself using that feature A LOT!!! In my business workflow, I'll usually have anywhere from 4-8 LibreOffice Writer docs open, simultaneously, copying and pasting sections from each into a new report. Same thing with LibreOffice Calc spreadsheets, but only 2-3 open at a time. Unity has a "spread" feature when I mouse to a hot edge (identical to skippyxd program), or when I mouse to a hot corner and see a fullscreen of workspace switchers instead of an icon/applet of workspaces. When looking for a specific report/spreadsheet, I often mouse to the workspace corner to look for the familiar icon; and once on the correct workspace, I'll hit the hot edge for the spread to identify the correct document. This has served me well for years, with no complaints whatsoever. But tabbing my documents together into a single window seems like a better workflow...and I can imagine several workflow tasks that would be improved with this feature. Now that I've seen it, I WANT IT!!! And as far as I can tell, it's only available on Flux!!!

 

Quick question for the Fluxmenu...I've already made some mods/additions, and I'm starting to get it hammered into what I like, but I'd like to create an "applications" submenu that is auto-populated with applications in usr/share/applications; but grouped by category (office, internet, media, utilities, preferences, etc...); and auto-updated when new apps are added. Seems like the best way to accomplish this is with a custom submenu, such as adding something like this to the fluxmenu file:

 

[submenu] (User Applications)

[exec] (Applications) {dmenu}

[end]

 

Of course dmenu is a Debian program not likely to be found in Arch repos, but that's probably how I'd do it if I had Flux on a Debian distro. I like the way Flux handles it's default menu, and I love how you can customize it any way you like it, but I'd like to see ALL my installed applications without navigating the file manager. In effect, I'd like the Flux menu to be a customized "wrapper" around the applications menu. Any ideas or suggestions how to implement what I'm trying to describe?

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securitybreach

Of course dmenu is a Debian program not likely to be found in Arch repos, but that's probably how I'd do it if I had Flux on a Debian distro

 

Actually Dmenu has absolutely nothing to do with debian besides being available in the their repos.

 

Instead this is a completely separate project from DWM (Dynamic Window Manager):

 

dmenu is a keyboard-driven menu utility developed as part of the dwm project.

https://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Dwm#dmenu

 

I have been using dmenu for many years now on Arch and it is available in the normal repos.

 

Achlinux Dmenu wiki entry: https://wiki.archlin...index.php/dmenu

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saturnian

The Fluxbox toolbar looks like it would serve my purpose quite well, except that it doesn't look very good on the right screen edge, which is where I would like/need it.

 

I know what you mean, man; Even in KDE, I like to set up the panel on the left side, vertical, these days. I haven't been able to come up with vertical configuration that I like for the Fluxbox toolbar. Decided to just stick with leaving it horizontal, at the bottom. Other than that, it's still a very good panel. I've tried lots of different panels in Fluxbox and in Openbox over the years -- even xfce4-panel works nicely with those WMs.

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Hedon James

The Fluxbox toolbar looks like it would serve my purpose quite well, except that it doesn't look very good on the right screen edge, which is where I would like/need it.

 

I know what you mean, man; Even in KDE, I like to set up the panel on the left side, vertical, these days. I haven't been able to come up with vertical configuration that I like for the Fluxbox toolbar. Decided to just stick with leaving it horizontal, at the bottom. Other than that, it's still a very good panel. I've tried lots of different panels in Fluxbox and in Openbox over the years -- even xfce4-panel works nicely with those WMs.

 

gotcha! I might have to experiment with the Flux toolbar at the bottom, but hidden until mouse-over; versus YOUR tint config, but on the right. Maybe I can re-train my brain to mouse to the bottom instead of the right?!

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... You're tint really catches my eye.

$ echo "You're tint really catches my eye." |sed "s/You're/Your/"

Autocarrot? :)

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Hedon James

Hey Saturn...much gratitude to you for sharing your info brotha! I did it! After much hair pulling, some fist pounding on the table, and a few random curses, I've got this Fluxbox hammered into a usable state for me! I got a tint2 config working on the right hand side and, dare I say it, MUCH BETTER than any other setup I've cobbled together before; I've got skippy-xd working on a keybinding (still debating whether to do a brightside hot corner); and I've got an application menu working from within the Flux menu! If it doesn't get any better, I think I could be happy with this, but I'm still tinkering with tab groupings, and experimenting with different ways of doing things. I'm loving me some Flux!

 

Only problem is, I'm not sure I could duplicate my work a 2nd time! LOL! Arch and pacman is just a foreign language for me...I could probably do this in Debian/Ubuntu in no time! But I'm learning, so it's all good!

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securitybreach

Only problem is, I'm not sure I could duplicate my work a 2nd time! LOL! Arch and pacman is just a foreign language for me...I could probably do this in Debian/Ubuntu in no time! But I'm learning, so it's all good!

 

Honestly I know apt-get inside and out but I still prefer pacman as the syntax makes more sense to me than apt does.

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Hedon James

Honestly I know apt-get inside and out but I still prefer pacman as the syntax makes more sense to me than apt does.

 

Not to me! At least not yet...I feel like a chimp with a swiss army knife, randomly pulling blades to see if it fits somewhere?! LOL!

 

In all fairness, I'm using an Arch-based derivative for the first time, learning about Arch idiosyncracies and conventions (this is the most time I've spent on ANY distro that wasn't Debian/Ubuntu based!); I'm using Fluxbox for the first time EVER, learning about features I didn't know existed and then customizing the interface to my liking; and learning to use pacman to do it ALL.

 

Pacman is just frustrating the heck out of me because I'm using that the most and I don't have it down yet. Back to my Debian analogy, if something isn't in the Software Center as a ready-made package/tool, I can use apt-get to search the repos for it; if I still can't find it (due to spelling error or such), I can check synaptic and see if the tool/package is in there; if it still isn't available, I can look for a PPA and add it, or find a DEB package and use gDebi to install. In Archbang, I can only look for a package with pacman, or pacman with flags, or search the website for applications to install with pacman.

 

For instance, the package "skippy-xd" really kicked my butt yesterday! Wasn't in the pacman repo, no matter how I spelled it; wasn't in the online website no matter how I spelled it. Eventually did a google search for Arch and skippy-xd that lead me to the AUR package skippy-xd-git. This lead me down the rabbit hole of the CLI tool "mkpkg" with the "-s" flag. Thought I had it licked...the Arch equivalent of make, install, make install....but NO! Turns out I only built the package, but hadn't installed it. Back to pacman for the install, where I finally figured out that the -U flag can be used for installation of local packages, as well as "upgrades" of packages. And that package better have a "*.pkg.tar.gz" or similar extension after the "*.pkg.*" indicator! (Don't ask me how I know that, as I could write a small comedy short on that one!) But I assure you I will be a LOT more diligent in checking, double-checking, and cross-checking filenames in the future with pacman!!! Long story short...I got skippy-xd-git installed; it's working fine; and it's invoked with a keyboard binding. So all is well, other than a 5-minute task on Ubuntu took me many HOURS on Arch (I don't know how many, I lost track...a LOT!).

 

But I'm still with it, I haven't chucked my machine through a window, and I still have most of my hair! Looking to keep the frustration factor to a lower level in the future, a couple questions regarding the use of pacman:

 

1. is there a "fuzzy" search for pacman? i could not find "skippy", nor "skippy-xd", nor "*skippy*" in searches using "pacman -Ss", nor on the website. But after locating "skippy-xd-git" with google, I was able to locate the package in AUR on website (still not available with pacman, but perhaps that makes sense if it wasn't in main repo) using the EXACT package spelling. is there a fuzzy search to find packages that appear to be close to what I'm spelling?

 

2. would this process have been easier with Yaourt (previously mentioned by Dr. J)? If so, what might the Yaourt installation process looked like?

 

3. If not Yaourt, perhaps another alternative to pacman? The pacman wiki lists numerous alternatives/derivatives of pacman. Would another tool have been a better choice for this use case?

 

3. speaking of alternative tools, I'm familiar with Octopi as a graphical tool. Is Octopi like a software center, or more like a synaptic?

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securitybreach

Pacman only searches for packages in the actual archlinux repos. The AUR (Arch User Repo) packages are user submitted, meaning that they are not official packages and cannot be installed by pacman without doing it the manual way using makepkg and pacman -U.

 

You have two choices, you can do it the manual way like you did with that package or use one of the AUR frontends. A lot of people prefer yaourt but I like pacaur.

 

Anyway once you have a frontend setup, you can search and install packages from the arch repos and from the aur. The syntax is the same with the frontends as it is with pacman but you can now install packages from the AUR as well.

 

For example, you could of just did this to find the package in the AUR (or arch repos):

 

 comhack@Pluto ~ % pacaur -Ss skippy
aur/skippy-xd-git 0-1 (31, 0.99)
A full-screen task-switcher for X11, similar to Apple's Expose.

 

As far as a 'software center', Octopi is a popular one but I have never used it before and since its not an official application, I do not know how stable it is.

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As far as a 'software center', Octopi is a popular one but I have never used it before and since its not an official application, I do not know how stable it is.

I used octopi for a while, but only briefly... Someting updated (probably GTK) and I lost my progress bar, so I fell back to yaourt.

Edited by Dr. J
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