MX-Fluxbox

[PPC]

What are your "very low specs"? Maybe we can open a thread on how to lower RAM use below 100MB? We can take this over to another thread so as to not pollute this thread, which is very useful for others with more RAM.

Hi Seaken64 - "very low specs" is a relative term. My netbook is a Atom single Core with 1 gig of shared RAM (so it has about 950meg of usable RAM), my Office computer is a desktop, also a single Core, but luckily with 3 gig of RAM (WOW! I know, it has as much RAM as my cellphone ). Both are 64 bits.
On my netbook I use antiX 19 64 bits with the default icewm desktop, and a live MX-Fluxbox 18.3, 64 bits via usb. I have both of those systems installed on my Office desktop.
1 gig of RAM is for now, in my opinion the "bare minimum" specs for using a modern web browser. On my netbook I can stay under the 500Mb RAM usage, but navigating with "ungoogled chromium" ( that uses very little RAM, but unfortunately I know only of a 64bits versions) , and with one or two tabs open (and no fancy webpages). Smtube is great for watching YouTube videos even on the crappiest computer...
In your case, devices with less than 1 gig, I would stick with antiX as a main OS, with a lighter web browser than Firefox / FirefoxESR.
antiX 64bits on my netbook runs on 98-105Mb of Idle RAM (64 bits version uses more RAM than 32 bits).

More on topic- you can make Mx-Fluxbox run using less "idle" RAM disabling as much stuff you don't use as you can... In my case, I disable MX-updater, the clipboard app, bluetooth services. If you don't use a printer, disable CUPS, if you eject your external drives from the file manager, close MX's USB Eject. If you don't use notifications close XFCE notification daemon, if you are using a desktop computer, you may also not need XFCE power settings, etc, etc...
Of course, if you don't need desktop icons, close idesk. You can close conky and, if you want to shave about 1 Meg of idle RAM, don't use a wallpaper image.
I think even MX-Fluxbox will always use more RAM than antiX because it simple runs more stuff under the hood. If you close everything MX has running, you would probably be better off with antiX, for most uses (example: on my dekstop computer, antiX runs with a wallpaper, desktop icons, and quick launch icons and still uses less 100mb than MX-Fluxbox without desktop icons or toolbar quick launch icons (which the default Fluxbox version MX-Fluxbox uses does not provide. considering the current Fluxbox version is some 5 years old, and probably there wont be a new version anytime soon. It's already almost perfect, as long as you don't miss having icons on the toolbar)...

P.

[PPC]

... the Devs now have a functional GUI for correcting that that we are preparing for release.

Very nice news for Mx-Fluxbox usability. One of the main MX-linux "selling" points it's usability- It has a simple Gui way to do almost anything a normal user can think of, without using the terminal or having to type a lot...

If I may be so bold to make some suggestions for increased usability: having a Debian menu (generated by mmaker) and that wonderful GUI "fluxbox menu editor" would be "the cherry on top of the cake". Also having lxappearance installed and available via the Look and Feel menu (I grant that my j4-dmenu suggestion can be a hard sale- is fast but, it's not for everyone).
Some more minor suggestions I want to also leave here for the next version are about keybinding: having the Windows key summon the menu, alt-f4 to close the current window, are almost expectef by everyone. A couple more suggestions, to make the most use of Fluxbox- using the keyboard to show the desktop and hiding windows decorations

Example:

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Super_L : RootMenu				    # Windows key summons the Fluxbox menu
Mod1 F4 :Close               	    #alt +f4 closes window
none F9 :ShowDesktop  				# F9 shows/hides the desktop

[anticapitalista]

RE- Less idle RAM use.

Use

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sudo ps_mem.py

to see which processes can be turned off and do so via

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sudo sysv-rc-conf

.
Once you are happy, you could even remove the apps.

I don't think you'll get it to less than or even equal to what antiX uses.

[PPC]

@Jerry3904
Probably my work won't allow me to spend a lot of time messing with antiX and MX-Fluxbox, but here goes a suggestion: Fluxbox does not allow for dynamic menus, so MX-Fluxbox users won't have access to the "Recent files" menu from XFCE.

I propose that the Fluxbox menu could have a entry to a yad script that allows the user to double click a recent file to execute it. It would be something like this: (I hope the forum does not mangle the code)

( Tip: save this script as a hidden file, so it does not show up on the presented recent files list...)

"BUG": the script correctly opens files with spaces with the correct application, but, while testing this script with .odt files, strangely opens the correct file, but with a random name ?!?. Ex. "lowriter 'aa aa.odt'" opens the correct file, displayed as "aa aa.odt", but "xdg-open 'aa aa.odt'" opens the correct file, displayed as "fileXXXX.odt". I'm guessing it's a small xdg-open bug?

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#!/bin/bash
find ~ ! -path $HOME/'\.*' -and ! -path $HOME/'Mail*' -type f -mtime -2 | sed 's/file:\/\///g' | sed 's/\"//g' |sed 's/%20/ /g' > ~/.recent.txt
EXEC=$(yad --title="Recent files" --width=400 --height=400 --center --separator=" " --list  --column=Files < ~/.recent.txt)
echo "'"$EXEC"'"
run="'"$EXEC"'"
# add inital ' and last ' ( bash automatically adds a space before the last ' so... see the next lines
v="'"$EXEC"'"
# to remove the space before the last " ' " and add "'"
v2=${v::-2}"'"
# to launch the file using xdg-open:
runny=$(echo xdg-open $v2)
eval $runny

[PPC]

I'm not sure anyone else will use this script, but I fixed it for my own personal use (because I heavily use LibreOffice Writer)

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#!/bin/bash
find ~ ! -path $HOME/'\.*' -and ! -path $HOME/'Mail*' -type f -mtime -2 | sed 's/file:\/\///g' | sed 's/\"//g' |sed 's/%20/ /g' > ~/.recent.txt
EXEC=$(yad --title="Recent files" --width=400 --height=400 --center --separator=" " --list  --column=Files < ~/.recent.txt)
echo "'"$EXEC"'"
run="'"$EXEC"'"
# add inital ' and last ' ( bash automaticaly adds a space before the last ' so... see the next lines
v="'"$EXEC"'"
# to remove the space before the last " ' " and add "'"
v2=${v::-2}"'"
# normal command to run selected file:
runny=$(echo xdg-open $v2)
### work around the error opening files with spaces in LibreOffice Writer - check extension and  if it's ODT, force it to open with lowriter
check=$(echo -n $EXEC | tail -c 3)
if [[ $check -eq odt ]]; then
runny=$(echo lowriter $v2)
fi
# run selected file
eval $runny

EDIT: improved version:

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#!/bin/bash
awk -F"file://|\" " '/file:\/\// {print $2}' ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel > ~/.recent0.txt
#reverse order, so last file comes first, etc
tac ~/.recent0.txt > ~/.recent.txt
#function to decode file name (from %20 instead of spaces, etc, from https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/159253/decoding-url-encoding-percent-encoding
urldecode() {
    local url_encoded="${1//+/ }"
    printf '%b' "${url_encoded//%/\\x}"
}
# select file to execute
EXEC=$(yad --title="Recent files" --width=400 --height=400 --center --separator=" " --list  --column=Files < ~/.recent.txt)
#do decoding on file name, just in case
decoded=$(urldecode $EXEC)
# generally open with general aplication used for the selected file type
openwith=xdg-open 
###work around th error opening files with spaces is LibreOffice Writer - check extension and  force it to open with lowriter
check=$(echo -n $EXEC | tail -c 3)
	if [ "$check" == "odt" ]; then openwith=lowriter ; fi
#add quotes to name of file, just in case the name has spaces
EXEC2="'"$decoded"'"
#to open the file
runny=$(echo $openwith $EXEC2)
eval $runny

[PPC]

Folks, I have the final version of the "Recent files" script if anyone wants to use it on MX-Fluxbox. It parses the ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel file to get the real list of all recent executed files.
It's over at https://pastebin.com/fSDPR9E1

If you want to have a "Recent Files" entry on your Fluxbox menu:
1-create a file in your home folder called recent_files.sh and open it for edition
2- paste the code (everything on the "RAW Paste Data" section) from the above link to that file and save it.
3- make the file executable (right click it in Thunar - Properties - Permitions Tab - make sure the option to execute the file, on the bottom is checked)
4- edit your ~/.fluxbox/menu-mx file and add, anywhere you want (below the first line) this:

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 [exec] (Recent Files) {~/recent_files.sh}

4- save the menu-mx file
6- Menu-Leave-Restart

You now have a Fluxbox menu entry that shows you recent files list. Just double click the file you want to run.
I use this a lot, it's up to the dev team if this script should come on the next MX-Fluxbox version or not

EDIT: as a bonus, for people having problems "finding" their applications on MX-Fluxbox, here's a very basic and simple script that lists "all" your installed applications (using the respective .desktop files). Scroll down to the application you want to start and and double click it.

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cd /usr/share/applications/
find *.desktop > ~/.apps.txt
# Use a Yad window to select file to be executed
EXEC=$(yad --title="Select Application" --width=300 --height=400 --center --separator=" " --list  --column=  < ~/.apps.txt)
# launch select file:
exo-open $EXEC

P.

[Jerry3904]

With all the changes you propose for people to make MX-Fluxbox as you like it, I sometimes can't tell if you have actually looked at MX-Fluxbox itself.



F6 brings up the menu of all applications and has a search box, so I'm not clear how anyone would have trouble finding an application.

[PPC]

With all the changes you propose for people to make MX-Fluxbox as you like it, I sometimes can't tell if you have actually looked at MX-Fluxbox itself.



F6 brings up the menu of all applications and has a search box, so I'm not clear how anyone would have trouble finding an application.

Hi Jerry, please let me just say why I make so many "proposed changes" to MX-Fluxbox...
First- I did explore MX-Fluxbox- one of my earlier posts even pointed to the fact that the users could make the "windows" key start XFCE's appfinder.
Second- I like my OS's to have all the amenities I'm used to- including- accessing applications from the menu, searching applications, searching files, and quick access to recent files.
Third- I don't mean to step on your (or the rest of the Dev team's) toes, with a deluge of "useless" suggestions, but, like in another thread here, I'm trying to make MX-Fluxbox run on the least resources possible, but without losing functionality. XFCE's appfinder is a very nice and familiar way to access apps BUT stays resident in memory taking some 40Megs or RAM. Not a big deal on modern computers, a huge deal on my 1 gig of shared RAM netbook. Having a Debian menu generated by MMaker or whatever is a familiar GUI way of accessing all the applications without "wasting" RAM, same thing for locating applications with j4-dmenu (or any other launcher that does not stay resident on RAM).
I'm tweaking Fluxbox for my own personal use, and sharing my findings here, just in case the dev's or any other user, wants to also implement any of them...
A user did say (on another thread) something like that there was no other good way for locating applications other than XFCE appfinder. The tiny script I shared on the final part of my previous post was part of an on-going experience to try to make a script hable to add idesk icons or/and FLuxbox menu entries from .desktop files- just click the app's name to add it to the menu or the desktop (I did manage to write a script that added quick links to ICEWM's toolbar, before). I was doing that because, sometimes I need quick access to applications, as do, I believe many users.
I went as far as generating the correct line [exec]... but stopped when I was trying to add that line to Menu-MX's text file...

Sorry for making so many suggestions on this "Tips and Tricks" MX-Fluxbox thread. It stops here, I do have to do work that actually pays...

P.

[Buck Fankers]

F6 brings up the menu of all applications and has a search box, so I'm not clear how anyone would have trouble finding an application.

"Recent Files" is great addition. I can't see the reason for me typing in the search box some text to get something I'm using frequently. (or worse, navigating through the menu of all apps over and over again) Just clicking with the mouse and picking up something I use a lot increases workflow. IMO, this addition is worth adding to Fluxbox. @PPC, thank you!

P.s.
But I'm the person to much prefer one single click on desktop shortcut to get to something instead 'clean desktop' & navigating menus and typing text in search box to get to something. So why to use Fluxbox then instead Xfce? Hardware limitations on some machines...

[Jerry3904]

Well what was confusing was the context of your suggestion:

I'm trying to make MX-Fluxbox run on the least resources possible

. WIthout that or any reference to appfinder, I was not clear about what you were doing. There's no reason for you to stop, of course.