HOW TO: Install Fluxbox CE on top of other Mint editions

[shane]

Do not try this unless you can fix a broken system. This is not for beginners. It has not been tested.

Some have asked about installing Linux Mint Fluxbox CE on other versions of Linux Mint. This is not officially supported. However, I have tried to keep this in mind while I was building this edition. I have not tested this and so I cannot guarantee that it will work flawlessly.
[EDIT] A separate 5GB partition is more than enough to install this edition. Plus you avoid many hassles and possible problems.

This is how I would recommend you go about it:

1. Enable the Community repositories. Uncomment this line in /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ felicia community

2. Update the apt

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sudo apt-get update

3. You can install the Fluxbox CE meta package... but for Gnome users this will be a large download and will change some things you may not want to be changed... wicd vs network manager and Slim vs GDM comes to mind. But this will setup your system well for Fluxbox. Do not do this if you want to keep your current environment largely unchanged. The command to run is:

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sudo apt-get install mint-meta-fluxbox

The other way is to install only the bare minimum packages to get a working Fluxbox environment which you can tweak to your current system. This is will be a smaller download and will not change your current system as much. The command to run is:

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sudo apt-get install mintdesktop-fluxbox mint-artwork-fluxbox mint-fluxbox-default-settings mint-fm2 mintconfig-fluxbox

Note The mint-fluxbox-default-settings package will change some system settings. Backups will be created in /usr/lib/linuxmint/mint-fluxbox-default-settings/backup/ in a sub folder which is named by the date when the backup was made. Files are stored with the full directory path in this subfolder.

4. If you wish to use Slim as your display manager (the log in manager) instead of GDM the run:

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sudo apt-get install slim

Make sure it is installing the Mint package and not the Ubuntu package (which is older) The name of the Mint package is slim_1.3.1-0mint9

5. Reboot your machine and select startmintfluxbox from the list of sessions. Or if you are using Slim press F1 until you get startmintfluxbox. Do not select the default Fluxbox session which is called startfluxbox.

6. Log in and enjoy!

Let me know if you face any problems.

[chemkid]

hi everyone! hello shane! (my first post... that is...)

thanks for the fluxbox-version of linuxmint!! awesome!!!

i really would like to put fluxbox-ce ontop of my mint-install... but i'm having a really hard time since i'm using the 64-bit version of linux-mint.

is it possible? i mean, does somebody already got fluxbox mint-flavored running on 64-bit?

i have to admit that i'm "really" new to linux (except using mac os x from time to time...)

since the easy approach provided by shane doen't work... too many dependencies, i guess. i tried installing the packages one by one... but no luck.

ex: i can only find a i386 deb for the mintdesktop-fluxbox -do i have to compile(built) a 64bit version?

a hint in the right direction would be cool, too! i already checked the fluxbox pages and i'm not scared to make my own fluxbox-version but the mint-fluxbox is really good-looking.


thanks for reading!

have fun (and try to help me a little...) !

chem!

[shane]

I'll try to see what I can do for 64bit... I think the scripts should work in 64bit without problems... However the compiled stuff will not... and I do not have a 64bit machine so I cannot cater completely for them... Anyway I'll see what I can do with the scripted parts after the Final is released.

[chemkid]

thanks shane!

that will do.


chem!

[Coaihim]

Hi,

I just tried this. Now though, it's impossible to log into GDM. I enter my correct username and password and the system flips back to username.

I'm trying to correct it now, but it might be so that my /home isn't specified anymore. Please advise.

[shane]

Hi,

I just tried this. Now though, it's impossible to log into GDM. I enter my correct username and password and the system flips back to username.

I'm trying to correct it now, but it might be so that my /home isn't specified anymore. Please advise.

Can you please specify what you did. e.g. did you install the meta package or not, did you install slim or not? Testers have found a bug in the current slim package... there may be others...

I can only think of the default settings package and slim as possible culprits. Look in /usr/lib/linuxmint/mint-fluxbox-default-settings/logs for a full description of system changes performed and where to find backups. Backups are created for every time you installed the package and they are named by date and time. I would pay special attention to
/etc/gdm/, /etc/linuxmint/, /etc/issue, /etc/issue.net, /etc/lsb_release.

If you can't seem to fix it, try reinstalling GDM...

[Coaihim]

Thank you for your reply. I fixed the issue by chrooting from a live session, purging all mint-fluxbox packages and slim and restoring gdm.

I think that when installing mint-fluxbox-default-settings (which installs slim as well), the gdm user group got messed up, but I'm not sure...

[shane]

Thanks for the feedback.

[Zwopper]

Hi,

I just tried this. Now though, it's impossible to log into GDM. I enter my correct username and password and the system flips back to username.

I'm trying to correct it now, but it might be so that my /home isn't specified anymore. Please advise.

I installed the packages since I run Mint XFCE,

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    sudo apt-get install mintdesktop-fluxbox mint-artwork-fluxbox mint-fluxbox-default-settings mint-fm2 mintconfig-fluxbox

I had the same problem...

I started in failsafe and chose root prompt, and did

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dpkg-reconfigure gdm

and chose slim as default, then

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reboot now

and upon reboot everything worked

[shane]

I should remove slim as a dependency... will do soon with the new packages for the final release.

[merlwiz79]

I should remove slim as a dependency... will do soon with the new packages for the final release.

just use slim | gdm and then if gdm is installed it won't install slim.

[Zwopper]

Log out kills fluxbox, but slim hangs...
tty8 says:

Warning HOME is not set, using root: /

Only way to fix it is to kill slim and start it again.

[shane]

Log out kills fluxbox, but slim hangs...
tty8 says:

Warning HOME is not set, using root: /

Only way to fix it is to kill slim and start it again.

I think this is because slim by default does not define the profile variable for $HOME which is the user's home dir. But our slim package manually defines this variable. It seems like it is not (re)defined on log out?... hence using / as home?...

about slim | gdm: duh... should have thought about that...

[canuckkat]

I'm not 100% certain but I'm pretty sure that installing fluxbox caused my .conkyrc file to be overwritten.

In any case, it would be good if any file that will be written in ~/ to be backed up as well. Or just have them backed up anyways. *shrugs*

ETA: I switched back to my gnome setup and I got

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"User Switcher" has quit unexpectedly.

Tried to set gdm as default and re-installed it and both times I got the following error message:

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invoke-rc.d: initscript gdm, action "reload" failed.

[shane]

The fluxbox package should not affect conkyrc in anyway.

The package that changes default system settings is mint-fluxbox-default-settings. This package, on installation, checks for existing files/settings and creates a backup first in /usr/lib/linuxmint/mint-fluxbox-default-settings/backup in a folder named by the date and time when the backup was made and in the full directory path. Only after creating this backup does it install the new settings.

Files/settings in your home directory are handled differently... including ~/.conkyrc. The mint-fluxbox-default-settings package installs the default files and folders for ~/ in /etc/skel as a sort of template for a default user home directory. When you login with the startmintfluxbox session, a script checks your home folder for each of these files whose template is in /etc/skel. If, and only if, the file is not present, it copies the default one from /etc/skel to ~/. There is no need to backup here since the file is not copied over if it already exists.

So, I do not know how your conkyrc file is getting overwritten. I hope this explanation of what goes on can help you pinpoint what's going wrong... Please let us know of your findings.

[shane]

I'm not 100% certain but I'm pretty sure that installing fluxbox caused my .conkyrc file to be overwritten.

In any case, it would be good if any file that will be written in ~/ to be backed up as well. Or just have them backed up anyways. *shrugs*

ETA: I switched back to my gnome setup and I got

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"User Switcher" has quit unexpectedly.

Tried to set gdm as default and re-installed it and both times I got the following error message:

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invoke-rc.d: initscript gdm, action "reload" failed.

See this post above

viewtopic.php?f=142&t=22864&p=139688#p137695

[canuckkat]

Yes, I changed slim back to default, but I still had that User Switcher error message. Unforunately, it's a known ubuntu bug (something about it being dependent on gdm according to my research). Oh well. I like slim for some reason so I'll just let things be. lol

Regarding my conkyrc, I read the log and it appears that it didn't get overwritten during installation, so maybe it was something I did after? It's nothing I can't fixed, I was just curious as to what happened.

[ShadeTree]

I should remove slim as a dependency... will do soon with the new packages for the final release.

Has this been accomplished? I'm running into problems with the requirement for slim on a machine that needs to have gdm (only).

Thanks

ShadeTree

[thisavera]

How do I post Pictures to Twitter from Cell Phone without Ineternet? I want to send a picture to twitter using Twitpic(Or any other site like that) but I beleive that you have to have internet to do so. I was wondering if there is a way to do it without internet.
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