[vox-tech] fluxbox questions

[Peter Jay Salzman]

On Mon 19 Jun 06, 10:13 PM, Hai Yi <yihai2004 at gmail.com> said:
>    hello there:
> 
>    I downloaded fluxbox and installed it, now I can see its executable in the
>    /usr/local/bin. As per the doc, I need to modify the .xinitrc or .xsession
>    to add one line: exec /usr/local/bin/fluxbox
> 
>    however, Ican't find either .xinitrc or .xsession under my home directory!
>    I only found sth like .xsession-error !BTW, how can I know my x-server is
>    x.org or xfree86? I believe I am using x.org, is it the reason why I can't
>    find those configuration files?
> 
>    Thanks,
>    Hai


Hullo Hai,

One of the benefits of using Debian is that you have more pre-packaged
software at your fingertips than (almost?) any other GNU/Linux distribution.

If you want to know if fluxbox is available within Debian, you could try:

   dpkg -l fluxbox

in which case you might see:

   un  fluxbox        <none>         (no description available)

which means that fluxbox is available from Debian sources (but the "un"
means it's never been installed on my system).  You can even use wildcards
if you quote your search term:

   dpkg -l "*fluxbox*"

which would match any package with the substring "fluxbox".  Once you know
of the existence of fluxbox, you can install it via:

   aptitude install fluxbox

There are many benefits of installing pre-packaged software including ease
of uninstallation, better integration within your operating system, and
Debian's anal adherence to policy (for example, you'll know that the
documentation will always be in /usr/share/doc/fluxbox rather than some
wierdo location that the fluxbox authors may put it in like
/opt/share/local/doc or something really whacked out like that).

Additionally, if you install pre-packaged software, you'll get updates which
fix bugs and security vulnerabilities when you ask for them.

BTW, if you ever want a description of a package, including dependencies,
conflicts, and suggestions, you can do:

   dpkg -p fluxbox

I don't know if this is fullproof, but you can tell whether you're using
x.org or XFree86 by the existence of the files:

   /etc/X11/xorg.conf      // x.org installed
   /etc/X11/XFree86*       // XFree installed

Another method would be to use dpkg again:

   dpkg -l "*xfree*"
   dpkg -l "*xorg*"

The string "ii" on the left of the output means the package is installed.

BTW, another great thing about Debian policy is that official package names
are always lowercase.  That means you'll never have to do something like:

   dpkg -l "*xfree*"
   dpkg -l "*XFree*"
   dpkg -l "*Xfree*"

since package names are always lowercase, you'll know it's:

   dpkg -l "*xfree*"

Do a Google search on "dpkg tutorial".  You'll find a lot of really good and
useful stuff.

Pete