Black Greyhound Ultra

[ttuuxxx]

your probably missing this
ttuuxxx

[playdayz]

@_MegadetH_ , Are you using the blackbox from the first message in this thread, or the blackbox from PetGet package manager. If you are using the one from this thread then the "xinit /usr/local/bin/blackbox" should work. There is not much that can go wrong if blackbox is in /usr/local/bin and its configuration files are in /usr/local/share/blackbox.

@Eyes-Only, the blackbox.pet in the first message of this thread doesn't need to run startblackbox to have a working xdg menu--it has plinej's wonderful program built in so all you have to do is to choose Refresh Menu from the menu. It shouldn't hurt of course.

I don't know what ttuuxxx's pet is right above this message, but its confusing to have the same name as the blackbox.pet in the first message of this thread.

[_MegadetH_]

@_MegadetH_ , Are you using the blackbox from the first message in this thread, or the blackbox from PetGet package manager. If you are using the one from this thread then the "xinit /usr/local/bin/blackbox" should work. There is not much that can go wrong if blackbox is in /usr/local/bin and its configuration files are in /usr/local/share/blackbox.

I installed blackbox from this thread. Anyway now I can't try because I'm formatting the whole drive and installing puppy and win. I'll try again when I'll have pc ready. thnx

[playdayz]

@_MegadetH_ , I think this might be it. Where you using xvesa by any chance, as opposed to xorg? It finally dawned on me that what you described was the same thing I saw when I started with xvesa. Blank colored screen with nothing but an arrow, with right-click menu. I didn't think quick enough to try the xvesa setup wizard--I just exited and changed to xorg.

[_MegadetH_]

@_MegadetH_ , I think this might be it. Where you using xvesa by any chance, as opposed to xorg? It finally dawned on me that what you described was the same thing I saw when I started with xvesa. Blank colored screen with nothing but an arrow, with right-click menu. I didn't think quick enough to try the xvesa setup wizard--I just exited and changed to xorg.

I think I was using xvesa. I will try to change to xorg and see what happens. i'm going to have a new fresh puppy installation, I will try with it.

[_MegadetH_]

Right now I've a fresh puppy installation, I installed Blackbox, and it works!

It is fast but I don't like the way it minimize windows. To swap windows I've to do each time right click / workspace list / iconified windows. It is quite unconfortable :/

1) Is there a faster way to swap windows?

2) When I reboot my pc, It loads default Puppy WM, instead of Blackbox. help !


thanks!

[playdayz]

Hey MegadetH, I have been doing some other things so I just saw your message. Switching windows and minimizing windows are two rough places in blackbox IMHO. You can switch more easily with the two arrows on the taskbar on the right side; they will cycle through the open windows. The arrows on the left side will cycle through the desktops To start up in blackbox you can use the Boot Manager to boot up to a command line (not into X) and then enter xinit /usr/bin/blackbox at the prompt after you log in. By doing it this way you will easily avoid starting any of the extra programs that start with jwm and you can go back to the default jwm just by choosing to boot into X.

[_MegadetH_]

Hey MegadetH, I have been doing some other things so I just saw your message. Switching windows and minimizing windows are two rough places in blackbox IMHO. You can switch more easily with the two arrows on the taskbar on the right side; they will cycle through the open windows. The arrows on the left side will cycle through the desktops To start up in blackbox you can use the Boot Manager to boot up to a command line (not into X) and then enter xinit /usr/bin/blackbox at the prompt after you log in. By doing it this way you will easily avoid starting any of the extra programs that start with jwm and you can go back to the default jwm just by choosing to boot into X.

hi playdayz. don't worry me too I was busy those days. thanks for the informations !

[mrallaire]

I've been experimenting with window managers and blackbox is awesome!!! I love the speed and simplicity of it. I'm interested in getting puppy to boot directly to blackbox, and perhaps eventually removing jwm all together.

Playdayz had an idea of how to do this, but I still can't get it after trying for 2 hours to figure it out - I'm still new. Could someone please tell me how to get the boot manager to boot to the command line? I think one would use the pfix=nox command in the menu.lst, but I don't know where one would put it.

My menu.lst looks like this:
title Puppy Linux 411 Frugal
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
kernel /puppy411/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppy411 nosmp
initrd /puppy411/initrd.gz

Could one also put the xinit /usr/bin/blackbox command in the /etc/rc.d/rc.local file to have it run automatically? If not, what else could one do.

I'm running puppy 4.11 with a frugal install on a dell inspiron 1501

[playdayz]

kernel /puppy411/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd pfix=nox psubdir=puppy411 nosmp

That's the line.

At the bottom of /root/.xinitrc you can replace "exec jwm" with "exec /usr/bin/blackbox", but you will get some stuff running that you might not want or need. I find it easier to jsut boot to a command line and then use the "xinit /usr/bin/blackbox"--that way nothing else is loaded.

Hint: click the eye in Rox to see hidden files; hidden files are the ones that begin with a period (.xinitrc) (I mention this because I don't know exactly how new you are

[Colonel Panic]

Hi. I've installed and am using this now, with a few extra blackbox themes
and backgrounds from this link;

http://f5nlg.free.fr/download/xwindow/themes_bb.tgz

- congrats on a job well done!

Very impressed with plinej's menu updater as well.

[_MegadetH_]

kernel /puppy411/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd pfix=nox psubdir=puppy411 nosmp

That's the line.

At the bottom of /root/.xinitrc you can replace "exec jwm" with "exec /usr/bin/blackbox", but you will get some stuff running that you might not want or need. I find it easier to jsut boot to a command line and then use the "xinit /usr/bin/blackbox"--that way nothing else is loaded.

Hint: click the eye in Rox to see hidden files; hidden files are the ones that begin with a period (.xinitrc) (I mention this because I don't know exactly how new you are

@playdayz,
the stuff might not want or need is related to JWM? Do you know If I uninstall JWM with exec /usr/bin/blackbox line will it run only the blackbox without loading unwanted stuff?

Another two question:
what is the button on the upper left corner? when I click there the windows disappear. I can't see any difference with "X" button.

Some apps I installed like games disappeared from menu. Is there a way to restore links in the menu?

Ps: lately I re-installed blackbox to play with it. It's light! I will play to personalize it:)

thanks in advance

[`f00]

<snip> Is there a way to restore links in the menu?

menu->refresh menu is quick and painless

You can also 'personalize' BB's menu quite easily by editing /usr/local/share/blackbox/ .. either the 'real' menu (which gets overwritten by a script when you "refresh menu" to current whatever-you-have) or menu.base (which can edit the blackbox section on the bottom) - be kind of careful with hand-editing since if you edit not so well, you can have interesting experiences (like restarting in fvwm95 if I recall an odd thing that happened to me correctly ) .. commenting/uncommenting is usually fairly safe

on the headerbar for windows to the far left is an 'iconize' button - yah, that surprises many! If your maus has a middle button (or scrollwheelpress works also), click it and a workspace/windowlist will come up - your iconized window has been minimized to there (quite tidy it is) .. I think it also is accessible from the menu under workspace list or similar.. not sure if windows really minimize to the taskbar or not since I'm in win32 atm and I'm relying on memory-such-as-`tis

[Anniekin]

Mega,

Akin to Windows, puppy seems to have issues with uninstalling applications, as references and traces of the program are left scattered throughout the files and directories.

A past uninstall of blackbox undoubtedly left references to /usr/share/blackbox, while the one installed referred to files in /usr/local/share/blackbox, which then could not be found.

I understand you have resolved the issue, yet am reporting my findings in hopes that the insight may be valuable to this community, in terms of development work.

[playdayz]

@_MegadetH_, In .xinitrc I checked there is absvolume but blackbox will not display it, also pup_event_frontend starts in .xinitrc, which you might not want (since I think it is keeping track of the desktop drive icons which blackbox also doesn't use--among other things).

[playdayz]

@_MegadetH_, In .xinitrc I checked there is absvolume but blackbox will not display it, also pup_event_frontend starts in .xinitrc, which you might not want (since I think it is keeping track of the desktop drive icons which blackbox also doesn't use--among other things). However, there are also some things about fonts which it might be better to keep--maybe that is why my fonts are not so pretty You can always prefix the lines that you want not to run with the comment character #

Code: Select all

## absvolume &#v3.91 volume tray applet, thanks to hairywill... v3.96 MENU_BG variable...
#if [ -f /usr/bin/absvolume ];then
# if [ "$MENU_BG" = "" ];then
# absvolume &
## else
#  absvolume -bg $MENU_BG &
# fi

#fi

[Dougal]

Code: Select all

killall -9 xload
killall -9 blinky
killall -9 asapm 
killall -9 freememapplet
killall -9 absvolume

You don't need to kill these, they are either started by JMW (in jwmrc-tray) or in xinitrc, where you can just comment out the relevant lines.

Code: Select all

killall -9 udevd               
killall -9 inotifywait
killall -9 klogd
killall -9 syslogd
killall -9 pup_event_frontend_d
killall -9 pup_event_frontend  
killall -9 pup_event_front

is it really worthwhile to mess with these? I'm not sure about Barry's pup_event things, but syslogd, klogd and udevd?
It's the gtk applets that take up memory.

[playdayz]

Hey dougal, thanks for the ideas. You know, the original Freak Out was the first album I ever bought (when it was released, yikes).

On topic, the black greyhound ultra is intentionally extreme (even over the top)--kind of a theoretical experiment, that also happens to run nicely. The kill commands were to try cutting some things out of jwm if you wanted it to restart next time with no changes--all of the greyhound experiments try to leave a system that would revert completely to its previous state just by rebooting.

I do like the way that Barry, mainly, questions some aspects of "linux orthodoxy," such as (not) running in root. I myself question the usefulness of the logs, for instance, simply because I find that I never use them--and if I need them for troubleshooting I can turn them back on. As I recall, I did notice an improvement in a bulkier distro by turning them off.

[Colonel Panic]

And here is my current desktop with lxpanel, beep media player, gkrellm and rainlender calendar.



Fullsize

Returning to this after a while (trying to save on system resources);

That looks great, especially the full size (and transparent?) gkrellm.

[trapster]

Download the invisible theme:
invisible.tar.gz

Unpack it in /root/.gkrellm2/themes

Gkrellmlaunch plugin is also handy to rid the desktop of some icons.

Many plugins can be found Here