Fluxbox is a

stacking window manager A stacking window manager (also called floating window manager) is a window manager that draws and allows windows to overlap, without using a compositing algorithm. All window managers that allow the overlapping of windows but are not compositing ...

for the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...

, which started as a

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods either to h ...

Blackbox Blackbox is a free and open-source stacking window manager for the X Window System. Blackbox has specific design goals, and some functionality is provided only through other applications. One example is the bbkeys hotkey application. Blackbox ...

0.61.1 in 2001, with the same aim to be lightweight. Its

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...

has only a

taskbar The taskbar is a graphical user interface element that has been part of Microsoft Windows since Windows 95, displaying and facilitating switching between running computer program, programs. The taskbar and the associated Start menu, Start Menu were ...

, a pop-up menu accessible by right-clicking on the desktop, and minimal support for graphical

icons An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, and Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, saints, and angels. Although especially ...

. All basic configurations are controlled by

text file A text file (sometimes spelled textfile; an old alternative name is flat file) is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists stored as data within a computer file system. In ope ...

s, including the construction of menus and the mapping of key-bindings. Fluxbox has high compliance to the

Extended Window Manager Hints In computing, the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual (ICCCM or I39L short for "I", 39 letters and "L") borders, and several other basic appearance attributes can be specified. Recent versions support rounded corners and graphical elements. Effects managers such as xcompmgr, cairo-compmgr and transset-df (deprecated) can add true transparency to desktop elements and windows. Enhancements can also be provided by using iDesk or fbdesk, SpaceFM,

PCMan File Manager PCMan File Manager (PCManFM) is a file manager application, developed by Hong Jen Yee () from Taiwan, which is meant to be a replacement for GNOME Files, Dolphin and Thunar. PCManFM is the standard file manager in LXDE, also developed by the same ...

or the

ROX Desktop The ROX Desktop is a discontinued graphical desktop environment for the X Window System. It is based on the ROX-Filer, a drag and drop spatial file manager. It is free software released under the GPL-2.0-or-later. The environment was inspire ...

. Fluxbox also has several features Blackbox lacks, including tabbed windows and a configurable titlebar. Because of its small

memory footprint Memory footprint refers to the amount of main memory that a program uses or references while running. The word footprint generally refers to the extent of physical dimensions that an object occupies, giving a sense of its size. In computing, t ...

and quick loading time, Fluxbox is popular in many

Live CD A live CD (also live DVD, live disc, or live operating system) is a complete booting, bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than lo ...

s such as

GParted GParted is a GTK front-end to GNU Parted and an official GNOME partition-editing application (alongside GNOME Disks, Disks). GParted is used for creating, deleting, resizing, moving, checking, and copying Partition (computing), disk partitions a ...

. It was the default window manager of Damn Small Linux and

antiX antiX () is a Linux distribution, originally based on MEPIS, which itself is based on the Debian stable distribution. antiX initially replaced the MEPIS KDE desktop environment with the Fluxbox and IceWM window managers, making it suitable ...

, but was replaced with JWM in 2007 and 2009, respectively. It is currently the default window manager of PCFluxboxOS, a remaster of

PCLinuxOS PCLinuxOS, often shortened to PCLOS, is a rolling release Linux distribution for x86-64 computers, with KDE Plasma, MATE, and XFCE as its default user interfaces. It is a primarily FOSS operating system for personal computers aimed at ease of us ...

, and of

Linux Mint Linux Mint is a community-developed Linux distribution. It is based on Ubuntu and designed for x86-64 based computers; another variant is based on Debian which is named Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) and has both 64-bit and IA-32 support. T ...

Fluxbox CE. Fluxbuntu, an

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

derivative with lightweight applications, was released in October 2007.Fluxbuntu Home
On December 12, 2019,

MX Linux MX Linux is a Linux distribution based on Debian stable and using core antiX components, with additional software created or packaged by the MX community. The development of MX Linux is a collaborative effort between the antiX and former MEPIS c ...

released MX-fluxbox as a fully integrated overlay of MX Linux 19. Previously it had been available from 2014 onward through the Package Installer. A Fluxbox edition has been added to the MX-21 series with Fluxbox in use by default. Fluxbox is also a featured window manager on

. The early versions of Lumina, a

desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphi ...

created for

TrueOS TrueOS (formerly PC-BSD or PCBSD) is a discontinued Unix-like, server-oriented operating system built upon the most recent releases of FreeBSD-CURRENT. Up to 2018 it aimed to be easy to install by using a graphical installation program, and ea ...

, were based on Fluxbox. As of December 2021 there are 22 flavors of Linux using Fluxbox in some way.

Features

* Right-clicking on the desktop gives a root menu * Customizable root menu * Wallpapers * Running applications appear in a

* Support for desktop themes * Customizable

keyboard shortcut In computing, a keyboard shortcut (also hotkey/hot key or key binding) is a software-based assignment of an action to one or more keys on a computer keyboard. Most Operating system, operating systems and Application software, applications come ...

s * Window tabbing * Slit for applications such as system monitors

Customization

Customization is done by editing configuration files in the .fluxbox subdirectory in the user's home directory: * Keyboard shortcuts are stored in the file. * Menu layout is in the file. * Everything that is run at startup is kept in the file. * The fluxbox configuration file is held at .

Features

Customization

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links