changing from Gnome to Fluxbox. Mint 8 64 bit (solved)

[titus]

Hello,
I've been using mint for some time now and I've always favoured the Fluxbox desktop. Recently I upgraded to 64 bit and I was disappointed to discover that Mint 8 64 bit was available only with Gnome. Gnome is excellent, true but I still prefer the light, speedy Fluxbox. I've downloaded fluxbox and fluxboxconfig but I'm not sure how to install it. I want to avoid, if I can, losing all my files, email settings etc and having to reload them all again from back-up.
I will, as usual, be grateful for any advice.

[shane]

It would be much easier if you installed Fluxbox from the repositories.

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sudo apt-get install fluxbox

fluxconf is a bit buggy from my experience and you would get more consistent results by editing the config files manually. They are pretty easy to get a hang of. Read the Fluxbox wiki for more info.

http://fluxbox-wiki.org/index.php?title ... ion_howtos

Then to get more of a Mint feel to your Fluxbox, I would recommend installing at least Mint-FM2 to auto generate and update the Fluxbox menu. Most of the Mint Fluxbox packages are architecture independent. Have a look at all the Mint Fluxbox specific packages. Note that some packages may conflict with Gnome packages. Install at your discretion.

http://packages.linuxmint.com/list.php? ... na-Fluxbox

P.S. just to be sure, copy the default Fluxbox configs to your home folder after installing which ever packages you choose.

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cp -R /etc/skel/.fluxbox ~/

[titus]

Many thanks shane,
I'll try your recommendations but it will probably be a few days until I get time. I've decided to do a clean install of Mint 8 to another hdd and get everything to my satisfaction (or not) before transferring my data. I'll also have a root about in the fluxbox wiki although my limited capabilities often find such things a little hard to understand.
Thanks again.

[shane]

Your're welcome. If you don't understand anything from the wiki just ask here... someone is bound to know the answer. I haven't used fluxconf in ages but the thing is sometimes it corrupted the config files... Hopefully they've fixed it.

[titus]

Thanks shane,
Works fine but now I find I've got to get used to Fluxbox again after Gnome. There's no pleasing some people!