StokeBloke.com

XFCE 4.12 upgrade on Mint 17.1

Friday, March 6th, 2015

I love Xfce and have been using it for years..

Finally 4.12 has been released but the ubuntu/mint ppa still only has 4.10 and I wanted all the new shiny things.

To upgrade 4.10 to 4.12 on mint/ubuntu simply run the following :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xubuntu-dev/xfce-4.12
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

If you dont use Xfce yet, why not?! Simply run this :

sudo apt-get install xfce4

Warning: There is an issue with QT apps not using a the GTK+ theme.

Run :

sudo apt-get install qt4-qtconfig
sudo qtconfig-qt4 

And select the “Appearance” tab, set the “GUI Style” to “GTK+”, then select File > Save.

Warning : If I ran qtconfig-qt4 as my user (not sudo) the gtk+ theme would not stick.

Ubuntu Alt-Right click to resize

Friday, April 9th, 2010

I recently moved my laptop from a Gentoo Linux distribution to Ubuntu. This was mainly that the rebuild time was very slow and updating my laptop, with gentoo, would take hours if not days. I decided to move to a binary distribution and chose Ubuntu. There was no real reason I chose Ubuntu over any other though.

Most of the setup was easy, the only issue I found was that Ubuntu uses Alt-Middle Mouse to resize the windows. I have used xfce for years and I just couldn’t get used to this change in Ubuntu.

I did alot of searching and could not find out how to change it.

…. some hours later …

Well I finally managed to get Ubuntu to resize with Alt-Right Click (button3).

By default Ubuntu resizes with Alt-Middle Mouse Button, my laptop mouse has a very small middle mouse button. I use xfce on my other linux boxes and I wanted all the Window Managers to function the same.

I tried installing the CompizConfig Settings Manager. I then disabled the Window Menu which was using Alt-Button 3 and went to the resize window setting and made that Alt-Button3. This seemed to be ok, until I tested it. The Alt-Button 3 was still showing the Window Menu.

I tried disabling the Window Menu totally, but the settings simply wouldnt stay.

After a bit of searching I found this.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compizconfig-settings-manager/+bug/146736
where it says:

open ccsm, go to Preferences, and if gconf is selected as a back-end, then make sure that the checkbox “Enable integration into the desktop environment” is unchecked.
Now you change change the bindings.

I’m not 100% what the “Enable integration into the desktop environment” checkbox provides, but everything seems to work ok with this checkbox disabled.

Also see http://wiki.compiz.org/CCSM#Backends_and_Integration

This workaround only works when you have the visual affects no though.  If you turn off the visual affect then compiz isnt controlling the right click any more and it goes straight back to opening the Window Menu.

I’m still trying to get the window manager to resize on right click without the visual effects being enabled. If anyone know, please let me know.

kde mouse for Windows

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

I normally use Linux as my main operating system but have to use Windows boxes at work.   I hate how you have to resize windows on Windows.  You have to click them 5 few pixels in the bottom right of the Window.

Under most Linux window managers you can press Alt-Right click and resize the window that way.

I really missed this on Windows and would keep trying to do it only to see context menus appear.

I finally found kde-mouse.exe (198k).  I cannot remember where and the website appears to have vanished.

I know of the following commands

  • Alt + Left Mouse Button: Drag to move a window.
  • Alt + Right Mouse Button: Drag to resize a window.
  • Double-Alt + Left Mouse Button : Minimize a window.
  • Double-Alt + Right Mouse Button: Maximize/Restore a window.
  • Double-Alt + Middle Mouse Button : Close a window.

Simply download the exe and drop into your Startup directory.

E.g

C:\Document And Settings\<username>\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

I have just 1 problem with kde-mouse though.  It does not work over Remote Desktop.  I constantly resize the main Remote Desktop window instead of the windows inside it.   Its only a small issue though 🙂   Kde-mouse is still amazing.

Fluxbox 1.0.0 for cygwin

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

I have built fluxbox for cygwin and tested it on 2 PCs now. I felt I should share it. Heres how to install it.

Firstly you should install cygwin and xorg-base for cygwin.com

Download the fluxbox 1.0.0 tar bz2 file and extract the file into cygwins root.

tar -xvjf fluxbox-1.0.0.tar.bz2 -C /

Now add fluxbox to your ~/.xinitrc file. Mine contains just the one line

fluxbox

Dont forget to ensure the defaultserverargs value in the /usr/X11R6/bin/startx file doesnt have the multiwindow argument. I.e change the line

defaultserverargs="-multiwindow -clipboard"

to

defaultserverargs="-clipboard"

download knockaround guyYou should get something like this once you run startx

cygwin and blackbox 0.70.1

Monday, April 28th, 2008

Here is a step to step guide to get blackbox working with cygwin.

Firstly you should have cygwin and xorg-x11 too. You should check the default xserver works. I.e you should be able to start a xterm. Once you have that we can concentrate on getting blackbox installed.

Download blackbox-0.70.1.tar.bz2

Extract

tar -xvjf blackbox-0.70.1.tar.gz -C /

Edit ~/.xinitrc and add blackbox to your the file. In my case this is the only line in my file.

blackbox

Edit /usr/X11R6/bin/startx

defaultserverargs="-multiwindow -clipboard"

to

defaultserverargs="-clipboard"

Fire it up and you should see this

Blacbox WM 0.70.1

Warning: I had to disable Unicode fonts in blackbox to get it working with cygwin. I have no idea why, but if blackbox tries to use unicode fonts all you get is boxes instead of the correct font renderings.