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[Staffan Mattsson]

Alright! I will go for fluxbox with palemoon browser.

Aha! So zfs eats ram. I knew there was a catch. I have 6gb on my laptop and can thereticly upgrade it to 8, but I would like to do other stuff than to just have a snapshot of my filesystem

 

[Trihexagonal]

Alright! I will go for fluxbox with palemoon browser.

Just be aware you need to add the 3rd party programs you build to the x11-wm/fluxbox ~/.fluxbox/menu manually. There will already be default programs on it and you can work from what's there.

Watch your markup or you could lose sub-menus if it's not in sync.

 

[ronaldlees]

IMO you're better off with UFS on a laptop.

If you're not into bells and whistles, you might try the x11-wm/i3 window manager. I use it on every GUI system I have, except Haiku. It's keyboard driven, so you have to know a few strokes, but it's a very quick "tiling" style manager.

Compared to x11-wm/xfce, it's extremely minimal. Fluxbox is also on the minimal side of the scale - opposite of xfce - but i3 is even more minimal. What tends to make xfce big are all the extras. The i3 window manager really doesn't have any extras to speak of.

 

[rigoletto@]

Just for the sake of correctness, x11-wm/xfce is a DE and not just a WM.

 

[Maxnix]

Aha! So zfs eats ram. I knew there was a catch. I have 6gb on my laptop and can thereticly upgrade it to 8, but I would like to do other stuff than to just have a snapshot of my filesystem

ZFS likes RAM a lot, since uses it for caching disk content; however, IMHO, 6GB is a reasonable amount to use ZFS on a laptop. On my laptop I have 3GB of RAM, and set vfs.zfs.arc_max to 700MB, so I have enough memory available for the programs I need. Just try what fit better your needs: UFS2 or ZFS, but don't think ZFS would be a non-viable idea.

 

[OJ]

Just a sideways comment here, because I haven't actually tried ZFS. However in 8 years or so using FreeBSD for my desktop system, I haven't actually had a situation where I wanted to dial the system back. It is very stable using UFS.

 

[Staffan Mattsson]

Im back!
Installed fluxbox, eterm, leaf-something-notepad and palemoon browser.
The palemoon browser return bus error(core dumped), but firefox works!
The fluxbox default theme is incredibly boring, I will have to learn how to change it later, and the menu isnt setup right. But Im back!
This time everything works from the start!

btw ubuntu also has zfs right? So its not a bsd thing? But BSDs is better?

Thank you all!

 

[drhowarddrfine]

btw ubuntu also has zfs right? So its not a bsd thing? But BSDs is better?

ZFS is a Solaris thing which migrated to FreeBSD. Linux has slowly been adopting it in its stumbling fashion.

 

[dch]

ZFS doesn't "eat" ram, but it does aggressively cache as much as it can. As others have pointed out you can tune the usage to your needs easily enough. I've run ZFS on OSX on 4GB of RAM in the past, and we run DNS resolvers for work that use ZFS with 2GB, although they don't do much else. The simplicity of rollbacks, backups via zfs send, boot environments, ease of mirrors and scrubbed data, and the rest is too good not to make the switch, unless you have a specific workload where UFS wins out.

 

[macondo]

Im back!

The fluxbox default theme is incredibly boring,
Thank you all!

Are you kidding? IIRC,
Right-click on the desktop, click on Styles, choose the theme you want...

 

[dch]

Some links to help you get started with FreeBSD on desktop:

- https://cooltrainer.org/a-freebsd-desktop-howto/
- http://calomel.org/ has lots of general FreeBSD tips
- https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/beginners-guide-how-to-set-up-a-freebsd-desktop-from-scratch.61659/
- https://antumdeluge.wordpress.com/2014/07/19/how-to-install-freebsd/

 

[Staffan Mattsson]

Yeah. I noticed it was very easy to change the theme of fluxbox.

But now I run lxde. My computer hangs and I wanted to see if it was the windowmanager. It hangs in lxde as well, so I think its the graphics card.
Ive tried almost everything, vt, sc nvidiaload nvidiamodeset load and nothing seems to work. After a while in X, the system hangs.

It hangs faster if I play Zdoom. I can see the nvidia screen when I startx, so it seems to be configured ok.

 

[Staffan Mattsson]

Thanks for the guides dch! In my opinion they were more pedagogic then the handbook.
If I'll do this again, I think I'll use them. If I dont get tired of this now when everything seems to work but just hangs sometimes.

 

[OJ]

Right-click on the desktop, click on Styles, choose the theme you want...

You are quite right. However, they are all premade and much the same.

 

[Trihexagonal]

The palemoon browser return bus error(core dumped), but firefox works!

The fluxbox default theme is incredibly boring, I will have to learn how to change it later, and the menu isnt setup right. But Im back!
This time everything works from the start!

Did you build www/palemoon from pkg or ports?

Everything x11-wm/fluxbox is right-click menu driven, broadly speaking. You can choose different default styles from there, configure different desktop options like hide taskbak, transparancy, etc.

I like boring, to an extent My 8ball theme probably falls into that category, but I have a red and a blue one avalilable on my site with instructions how to place them if you check my profile. Then you can choose them from the default styles, or edit them to suit you.

I doubt any of the programs you installed are already listed on the menu. You need a text editor at your disposal to add them. You can either invoke leafpad from the terminal or if you're adventurous you could edit it with ee. The prior will be easiest for you but I love ee. The menu is in the usr/home/username/.fluxbox.

The period before the word fluxbox denotes it as a hidden directory. If you built x11-fm/xfe you can make hidden files visible from the menu.

I won't abandon you.

 

[Staffan Mattsson]

Hehe, Well I used packages for everything. But I could still rightclick and show secret files, so I find teh menu text thing and could edit. I can now start both leafpad and doom and palemoon from the menu.

I noticed that both palemoon and firefox works fine. Its just when I logout and then come back to X that I get segmentation fault for both of them. But thats a minor problem.
The real thing is that the machine hangs after a while. This gets faster in ZDoom. I think I have a 8200M Nvidia graphics card. Ive tried both manual and auto configure.

Im thinking about installing trueos and let it configure my computer just to see if its even possible to get it right on my computer.

PS

My brother in law apperantly uses freenas at home. He says that it is freebsd. I wonder what the difference is. I think this is freebsd biggest problem. People taking the code and changing its name...

 

[Staffan Mattsson]

If Trihexagonal or any other kind soul would like to help me with the "hangups", then please see the minor issues thread. Admin thought I where threadstealing and understandibly wants one subject per thread.

 

[teo]

x11-wm/fluxbox is easy to configure and there is no fault seeking to be done as far as I know. I have 3 styles available you're welcome to but only use one myself, 8ball. It's black&white but if you set Force Pseudo-Transparancy to 155 the bg colors of a wallpaper will show through. It's much easier than I have a way of making things sound.

FluxBox I have tried to configure but I have not been able to with it, some applications that are not shown in the default configuration, neither it does not visualize in the menu or screen the directory of the root of the system or of the user's folder, not are as how to put the icons of each package or application in the menu, I do not know how to change the language for the keyboard or the same system in FluxBox, the window manager does not detect the virtualbox guests, is pretty confusing.


Greetings!

 

[Trihexagonal]

FluxBox I have tried to configure but I have not been able to with it, some applications that are not shown in the default configuration, neither it does not visualize in the menu or screen the directory of the root of the system or of the user's folder, not are as how to put the icons of each package or application in the menu,

It generates a default menu that doesn't initially include all the programs I've installed. I save my menu from one build to the next and just copy it. As long as you have a terminal and a text editor you can summon the editor and fix the menu in /usr/home/teo/.fluxbox.

Styles are kept in /usr/local/share/fluxbox/styles. I don't like icons on my menu, but mrclksr has a nice looking Fluxbox desktop with menu icons and was kind enough to detail how he did it on his screenshot page on my site:

http://trihexagonal.org/mrclksr.html

 

[teo]

I save my menu from one build to the next and just copy it.

Hello Trihexagonal, you may procedd with an example? I don't get that. The of mrclksr, very nice those screen shots, that's what I tried to do but I couldn't with FluxBox.

 

[Trihexagonal]

Hello Trihexagonal, you may procedd with an example? I don't get that. The of mrclksr, very nice those screen shots, that's what I tried to do but I couldn't with FluxBox.

It's not letting me attach a .txt file with Firefox or Palemoon for some reason. I posted a screenshot from Firefox earlier. But I posted my menu before and it's still there:

https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/recommendations-for-lightweight-wm.64540/#post-375799

I always install the same basic programs so once I'm at my new desktop I pull and copy it from a USB stick I use as backup and am ready to go. I cut out the sub-menus deeper than one level since there aren't many programs and it looks neater to me. Programs that need to be run as root, like sysutils/tkdvd, I always call from the command line as root.

 

[teo]

I always install the same basic programs so once I'm at my new desktop I pull and copy it from a USB stick I use as backup and am ready to go. I cut out the sub-menus deeper than one level since there aren't many programs and it looks neater to me. Programs that need to be run as root, like sysutils/tkdvd, I always call from the command line as root.

That's very nice of you, I will try again with FluxBox, please help me where I have confusion or I can not see in the menu the applications or root directory of the system or the User Box that is very important to view the devices, folders, among others, and also with that of the guest of the virtualbox machine that does not detect the window manager and it is very uncomfortable to be working with a reduced screen, due to the lack of FreeBSD support for the hardware of this machine, I cannot fully install this nice system on the real machine.

I installed that package and the resul that message output.

# pkg info -D cdrtools

cdrtools-3.01_1:
Always:
===========================================================================

Note: The location of the cdrtools `defaults' files has been set to

    /usr/local/etc

This is the FreeBSD ports standard config file location, NOT the cdrtools
standard location, which is /etc/default.

The reason for this is that FreeBSD ports and packages should not use
configuration files outside of /usr/local.

 

[Trihexagonal]

That's very nice of you, I will try again with FluxBox, please help me where I have confusion or I can not see in the menu the applications or root directory of the system or the User Box that is very important to view the devices, folders, among others, and also with that of the guest of the virtualbox machine that does not detect the window manager and it is very uncomfortable to be working with a reduced screen, due to the lack of FreeBSD support for the hardware of this machine, I cannot fully install this nice system on the real machine.

I'm not completely clear on everything you said. If the program you install isn't on the menu just add it, you can use what's already there to copy & paste the new entry. The .fluxbox directory I referenced is hidden and you have to set your file manager to show them.

Root directory of the system is where you lost me and I have no idea what you mean by User Box. Most of the program directories you'll ever need to work out of will be in the ~/home directory, or possible /usr/local/share, but my need to do anything there is limited to something I want to change, like the icon color for the titlebar in x11-fm/xfe or fetch games/cowsay ASCII art. Of course knowing your directory tree structure and what it contains is a good thing.

I've never used a VM so I'm of no help there.

# pkg into -D cdrtools is just showing you information on an installed pkg. I use ports but that is installed with sysutils/tkdvd on my machine and I get the same message with that command.

As for Hardware support, it's not a problem with my vintage Thinkpads. It's what I prefer to run and already have several rants about their virtues.

 

[teo]

I've never used a VM so I'm of no help there.

As for Hardware support, it's not a problem with my vintage Thinkpads. It's what I prefer to run and already have several rants about their virtues.

What fun all this, for the first time I set it almost to perfection following your very good guide, now I need to change the wallpaper and deal with the VM that does not detect from FluxBox for guests, I don't know how to add the shutdown button in the FluxBox menu.

The thinkpads, all those machines are compatible with FreeBSD?