Wallpaper

Install some background images:

# aptitude install propaganda-debian

and an appropriate image viewer to be used as wallpaper setter:

# aptitude install feh

If the latter was already installed, you may mark it as manually installed:

# aptitude unmarkauto feh

After opening a Fluxbox session, set your favorite wallpaper:

$ fbsetbg -t /usr/share/wallpapers/The-Brothers-Gibb-1.JPG

Now you want this choice to be remembered for the next sessions. Edit ~/.fluxbox/init so that:

$ grep rootCommand ~/.fluxbox/init
session.screen0.rootCommand: fbsetbg -l

Style and fonts

Now select a tiny and yet readable font (you can use xfontsel to find the one that's best for you) and modify the following two lines in your Fluxbox configuration file:

$ grep 'session\.style' ~/.fluxbox/init
session.styleOverlay: ~/.fluxbox/overlay
session.styleFile: /usr/share/fluxbox/styles/Meta

Then, create the style customization file:

$ cat ~/.fluxbox/overlay
background: none
*font: -*-terminus-*-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-iso10646-*

Slit

Modify your Fluxbox configuration file so that:

$ grep slit ~/.fluxbox/init
session.screen0.slit.placement: TopRight
session.screen0.slit.direction: Horizontal
session.screen0.slit.onTop: False
session.screen0.slit.autoHide: False

Workspaces

Set 4 workspaces with short names:

$ grep '\.workspace' ~/.fluxbox/init
session.screen0.workspaceNames: W1,W2,W3,W4
session.screen0.workspaces: 4

Window placing and focusing

Disable window position adjustments:

$ grep edge ~/.fluxbox/init
session.screen0.edgeSnapThreshold: 0

It's good to have window position shown:

$ grep position ~/.fluxbox/init
session.screen0.showwindowposition: True

Set a nice focus model:

$ grep focus ~/.fluxbox/init
session.screen0.focusModel: StrictMouseFocus
session.screen0.focusLastWindow: True
session.screen0.focusNewWindows: False

Disable automatic window raising:

$ grep Raise ~/.fluxbox/init
session.screen0.autoRaise: False
session.autoRaiseDelay: 250

Enable content display for moving windows:

$ grep opaque ~/.fluxbox/init
session.screen0.opaqueMove: True

Also, integrate tab labels into titlebars, so that they do not occupy room on the screen:

$ grep tabs ~/.fluxbox/init
session.screen0.tabs.intitlebar: True
session.screen0.tabs.usePixmap: False

Screensaver

Install a suite of screensavers:

# aptitude install xscreensaver xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl-extra
# aptitude install xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod \
  xscreensaver-screensaver-webcollage unicode-screensaver

Also install other complementary packages:

# aptitude install xplanet-images

In order to have the screensaver system started on each Fluxbox session you open, insert the following two lines into your regular user's ~/.xsession file (between MANAGER and HANG POINT):

$ grep -A 1 'start screensaver' ~/.xsession
# start screensaver
xscreensaver -no-splash &

and the following two lines as well (after the HANG POINT):

$ grep -A 1 'stop screensaver' ~/.xsession
# stop screensaver
xscreensaver-command -exit

Now it's time to configure Xscreensaver for your regular user. Open a Fluxbox session and run the following command (from a terminal emulator):

$ xscreensaver-demo

Set "Blank After" 15 minutes and "Cycle After" 5 minutes; then uncheck "Lock Screen". Go to the "Advanced" tab and check "Grab Desktop Images", uncheck "Grab Video Frames" and "Choose Random Image", check "Power Management Enabled" (set "Standby After" 30 minutes, "Suspend After" 30 minutes, and "Off After" 45 minutes), uncheck "Quick Power-off in Blank Only Mode", check "Fade to Black when Blanking", uncheck "Fade from Black When Unblanking" (set "Fade Duration" to 3 seconds); select "Program" fortune.

Go back to the "Display Modes" tab and make sure you choose the "Random Screen Saver" mode. After that, enable the screenhacks you like, while disabling the ones you don't like. If you share my tastes, enable and configure the screenhacks as described in the following table:

When you're done with the screenhack selection, select Quit from the File menu and your configuration will be saved.

Key bindings

Make sure an appropriate external key binding file is referenced from the main configuration file:

$ grep keyFile ~/.fluxbox/init
session.keyFile: ~/.fluxbox/keys

and modify the the key file so that it looks like:

$ cat ~/.fluxbox/keys
OnTitlebar Mouse1 :MacroCmd {Focus} {Raise} {ActivateTab}

OnTitlebar Move1 :StartMoving
OnLeftGrip Move1 :StartResizing bottomleft
OnRightGrip Move1 :StartResizing bottomright
OnWindowBorder Move1 :StartMoving

OnTitlebar Mouse2 :StartTabbing

OnTitlebar Double Mouse1 :Shade
OnTitlebar Mouse3 :WindowMenu

OnWindow Mod1 Mouse1 :MacroCmd {Raise} {Focus} {StartMoving}
OnWindow Mod1 Mouse3 :MacroCmd {Raise} {Focus} {StartResizing BottomRight}

OnDesktop Mouse1 :hideMenus
OnDesktop Mouse2 :workspaceMenu
OnDesktop Mouse3 :rootMenu
OnDesktop Mouse4 :nextWorkspace
OnDesktop Mouse5 :prevWorkspace

Mod4 Tab :NextWindow (workspace=[current])
Mod4 Shift Tab :PrevWindow (workspace=[current])
Mod4 F1 :Workspace 1
Mod4 F2 :Workspace 2
Mod4 F3 :Workspace 3
Mod4 F4 :Workspace 4
Mod4 F5 :Workspace 5
Mod4 F6 :Workspace 6
Mod4 F7 :Workspace 7
Mod4 F8 :Workspace 8
Mod4 F9 :Workspace 9
Mod4 F10 :Workspace 10
Mod4 F11 :Workspace 11
Mod4 F12 :Workspace 12
Mod4 x :ExecCommand uxterm -ls
Mod4 l :ExecCommand xscreensaver-command -lock
Mod4 d :DetachClient
Mod4 r :Raise
Mod4 f :Fullscreen
Mod4 t :ExecCommand synclient TouchpadOff=1
Mod4 y :ExecCommand synclient TouchpadOff=0
Mod4 w :ToggleDecor
Mod4 Up    :MoveUp    1
Mod4 Left  :MoveLeft  1
Mod4 Down  :MoveDown  1
Mod4 Right :MoveRight 1
Mod4 Shift Up    :MoveUp    18
Mod4 Shift Left  :MoveLeft  18
Mod4 Shift Down  :MoveDown  18
Mod4 Shift Right :MoveRight 18

The first few directives set a classical configuration for mouse behavior in Fluxbox. The remaining directives customize some other aspects. This way, you can click on the desktop wallpaper with the middle or right mouse button to get the workspace or main menu, respectively; clicking on the desktop with the left mouse button will close those menus, instead; by using the mouse wheel on the desktop, you can also switch to the previous or next workspace. Moreover, you can use the [Logo] keys as a keyboard shortcut enablers: [Logo+Tab] will focus the next window, [Logo+Shift+Tab] will focus the previous one, [Logo+F1] will switch to the first workspace, and likewise for the other function keys, [Logo+X] will open a new terminal emulator (with a login shell inside), [Logo+L] will lock the screen, [Logo+D] will take the focused window out of a tab-group (you can stack a window onto another one, by dragging its title bar with the middle mouse button and dropping it on the title bar of the other, thus obtaining a tab-group), [Logo+R] will raise a window above the other ones, [Logo+F] will bring a window to fullscreen mode and back to its original state, [Logo+T] will disable a touchpad (if any), [Logo+Y] will re-enable it, [Logo+W] will toggle decorations for the focused window, [Logo+CursorKey] will move the focused window by 1 pixel, and [Logo+Shift+CursorKey] will move the focused window by 18 pixels.

Panel

Install a nice panel:

# aptitude install xfce4-panel

Then start the panel for your regular user:

$ xfce4-panel --disable-wm-check --sm-client-disable

and configure it by right-clicking on it and selecting Panel Properties from the menu. Select "Panel 2" and click on the "Remove the currently selected panel" button. Once only "Panel 1" is left, you can customize it. In the "Display" tab, select mode "Horizontal", check "Lock panel" (after moving it to the bottom of the screen), select automatically hide the panel "Intelligently", set row size (pixels) "30", number of rows "1", length (pixels) maximum value (the screen width, shown as 1600 pixels in our example workstation), uncheck "Automatically increase the length". In the "Appearance" tab, disable "Dark mode", select style "None (use system style)", enable icons "Adjust size automatically". In the "Items" tab, add the following items (and remove any other loaded item): a Launcher with one subitem named "Terminal", command /usr/bin/uxterm -ls, icon /usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/xterm-color.svg, a second Launcher with one subitem named "Lock screen", command /usr/bin/xscreensaver-command -lock, icon /usr/share/pixmaps/xscreensaver.svg), a Separator (style "Transparent", uncheck "Expand"), a Workspace Switcher (appearance "Miniature View", number of rows "1", disable "Switch workspaces using the mouse wheel"), a Separator (style "Transparent", uncheck "Expand"), a Window Buttons (check "Show button labels", uncheck "Show flat buttons", uncheck "Show handle", check "Show tooltips", sorting order "Timestamp", middle click action "Nothing", uncheck "Group windows by application", uncheck "Restore minimized windows to current workspace", check "Draw window frame when hovering a button", uncheck "Switch windows using the mouse wheel", uncheck "Show windows from all workspaces", uncheck "Show only minimized windows", check "Show windows from all monitors"), a Separator (style "Transparent", but this time check "Expand"), a Status Tray Plugin (enable "Adjust size automatically", uncheck "Arrange items in a single row", uncheck "Hide items by default", uncheck "Square items", uncheck "Menu is primary action", uncheck "Request symbolic icons"), a Separator (style "Transparent", uncheck "Expand"), a Clock (leave "Timezone" and "Command" blank, select apperance layout "Digital", tooltip format "Thursday 25 April 2024", clock layout "Time Only", font "Sans Bold 11", format "23:55"), a Separator (style "Transparent", uncheck "Expand").

Now, in order to have the panel started on each Fluxbox session you open, insert the following two lines into your regular user's ~/.xsession file (between MANAGER and HANG POINT):

$ grep panel ~/.xsession
# start panel
xfce4-panel --disable-wm-check --sm-client-disable &

and disable the Fluxbox toolbar and its systray:

$ grep 'toolbar\.visible' ~/.fluxbox/init
session.screen0.toolbar.visible: False
$ grep 'toolbar\.tools' ~/.fluxbox/init
session.screen0.toolbar.tools: workspacename, prevworkspace, nextworkspace, iconbar, prevwindow, nextwindow, clock

System monitor

Install a nice system monitor and some auxiliary tools:

# aptitude install conky-std cowsay ddate

In order to configure the system monitor for your regular user, create the directory:

$ mkdir -p ~/.config/conky/

and edit ~/.config/conky/conky.conf so that it looks like:

$ cat ~/.config/conky/conky.conf
-- vim: syntax=lua

conky.config = {
    background = false, -- do not fork in the background
    font = '-*-terminus-*-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-iso10646-*', -- X font (w/o Xft)
    use_xft = false, -- do not use Xft
    update_interval = 2.0, -- update interval (in seconds)
    total_run_times = 0, -- run forever
    own_window = true, -- do not use root window, create own window instead
    own_window_type = 'override', -- desktop own window
    own_window_transparent = true, -- use pseudo transparency
    double_buffer = true, -- use double buffering
    minimum_width = 380, -- minimum width of text area
    draw_shades = true, -- draw shades
    draw_outline = false, -- do not draw outlines
    draw_borders = false, -- do not draw borders around text
    draw_graph_borders = true, -- draw borders around graphs
    stippled_borders = 8, -- stippled borders?
    border_inner_margin = 3, -- border margins and width
    border_outer_margin = 0,
    border_width = 1,
    default_color = 'white', -- default colors
    default_shade_color = 'black',
    default_outline_color = 'black',
    alignment = 'top_right', -- placement
    gap_x = 8, -- gap between borders of screen and text
    gap_y = 8,
    no_buffers = true, -- subtract file system buffers from used memory
    cpu_avg_samples = 2, -- number of cpu samples to average
    net_avg_samples = 2, -- number of net samples to average
    override_utf8_locale = true, -- need to force UTF8
    use_spacer = 'left', -- add spaces to keep things from moving about
    text_buffer_size = 640, -- set buffer size (in bytes) for exec outputs
    if_up_strictness = 'address', -- set if_up check strictness
};

-- stuff to be formatted on screen
conky.text = [[
${color green}Host:$color $nodename - $sysname $kernel on $machine
$hr
${color green}Time:$color ${time %a, %d %b %Y %T %z}${color green} - Unix time:$color ${time %s} s
${color green}Uptime:$color $uptime
${color green}Load Average:$color $loadavg${color green} - Processes:$color $processes${color green} - Running:$color $running_processes
${color green}CPU usage         %CPU   %MEM   RAM usage         %CPU   %MEM
${color} ${top name 1} ${top cpu 1} ${top mem 1}  ${top_mem name 1} ${top_mem cpu 1} ${top_mem mem 1}
${color} ${top name 2} ${top cpu 2} ${top mem 2}  ${top_mem name 2} ${top_mem cpu 2} ${top_mem mem 2}
${color} ${top name 3} ${top cpu 3} ${top mem 3}  ${top_mem name 3} ${top_mem cpu 3} ${top_mem mem 3}
${color green}CPU Clock Frequencies:$color ${freq 1} MHz  ${freq 2} MHz  ${freq 3} MHz  ${freq 4} MHz
${color green}CPU Usage:$color $cpu % ${cpubar 6,100}${color green} - Disk I/O:$color $diskio/s
${color lightgrey}${cpugraph 30,190 0000ff ff0000} ${diskiograph 30,190 0000ff ff0000}
${color green}RAM Usage: $color $mem/$memmax - $memperc % ${membar}
${color green}Swap Usage:$color $swap/$swapmax - $swapperc % ${swapbar}
$hr
${color green}CPU Core Temperatures:$color ${hwmon coretemp temp 2 1 273} K  ${hwmon coretemp temp 3 1 273} K  ${hwmon coretemp temp 4 1 273} K  ${hwmon coretemp temp 5 1 273} K
${color green}CPU Fan:$color ${hwmon nct6791 fan 2 0.10472 0} rad/s${color green} - Chassis Fan:$color ${hwmon nct6791 fan 3 0.10472 0} rad/s
$hr
${color green}Network Ports:$color ${tcp_portmon 1 65535 count}
${if_up  enp0s25}${color green} enp0s25 - Upstream:$color ${upspeedf  enp0s25} KiB/s${color green} - Downstream:$color ${downspeedf  enp0s25} KiB/s
${color lightgrey}${upspeedgraph  enp0s25 30,190 0000ff ff0000} ${downspeedgraph  enp0s25 30,190 0000ff ff0000}$endif
$hr
${color green}Filesystems:
${color green} /     $color${fs_used     /}/${fs_size     /} ${fs_bar     /}
${color green} /usr  $color${fs_used  /usr}/${fs_size  /usr} ${fs_bar  /usr}
${color green} /var  $color${fs_used  /var}/${fs_size  /var} ${fs_bar  /var}
${color green} /tmp  $color${fs_used  /tmp}/${fs_size  /tmp} ${fs_bar  /tmp}
${color green} /home $color${fs_used /home}/${fs_size /home} ${fs_bar /home}
$hr
${color green}${execi 50 ddate}
${color green}${execi 65000 fortune -s | tr -d '\b' | cowsay}
]];

Please note that coretemp and nct6791 are the hwmon device module names in our example workstation; you may find out the names of the hwmon device modules in yours, by issuing the following command:

$ tail -n 1 /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon*/name

Moreover, enp0s25 is the name of the primary network interface in our example workstation; you may issue the following command to find out the name of the primary network interface in yours:

$ /sbin/ifconfig

If you want to have the system monitor started on each Fluxbox session you open, insert the following two lines into your regular user's ~/.xsession file (between MANAGER and HANG POINT):

$ grep -A 1 'start system monitor' ~/.xsession
# start system monitor
sleep 1 && conky &

and the following two lines as well (after the HANG POINT):

$ grep -A 1 'stop system monitor' ~/.xsession
# stop system monitor
killall -TERM conky

An eye on log files

Since you are the system administrator, you may want to read log files with your regular user (i.e.: without becoming root just for this). To make this possible, add your regular user (substitute $REGULARUSER with your username):

# adduser $REGULARUSER adm

The already installed system monitor can also be used to display log files on the desktop. Edit ~/.config/conky/tail.conf so that it looks like:

$ cat ~/.config/conky/tail.conf
-- vim: syntax=lua

conky.config = {
    background = false, -- do not fork in the background
    font = '-*-fixed-*-r-*-*-10-*-*-*-*-*-iso10646-*', -- X font (w/o Xft)
    use_xft = false, -- do not use Xft
    update_interval = 2.0, -- update interval (in seconds)
    total_run_times = 0, -- run forever
    own_window = true, -- do not use root window, create own window instead
    own_window_type = 'override', -- desktop own window
    own_window_transparent = true, -- use pseudo transparency
    double_buffer = true, -- use double buffering
    maximum_width = 920, -- maximum width of text area
    draw_shades = true, -- draw shades
    draw_outline = false, -- do not draw outlines
    draw_borders = false, -- do not draw borders around text
    draw_graph_borders = true, -- draw borders around graphs
    stippled_borders = 8, -- stippled borders?
    border_inner_margin = 3, -- border margins and width
    border_outer_margin = 0,
    border_width = 1,
    default_color = 'white', -- default colors
    default_shade_color = 'black',
    default_outline_color = 'black',
    alignment = 'top_left', -- placement
    gap_x = 8, -- gap between borders of screen and text
    gap_y = 8,
    no_buffers = true, -- subtract file system buffers from used memory
    cpu_avg_samples = 2, -- number of cpu samples to average
    net_avg_samples = 2, -- number of net samples to average
    override_utf8_locale = true, -- need to force UTF8
    use_spacer = 'left', -- add spaces to keep things from moving about
    text_buffer_size = 640, -- set buffer size (in bytes) for exec outputs
    if_up_strictness = 'address', -- set if_up check strictness
};

-- stuff to be formatted on screen
conky.text = [[
${color white}${exec tail -v -n 12 /var/log/kern.log 2> /dev/null}
${color yellow}${exec tail -v -n 12 /var/log/exim4/mainlog 2> /dev/null}
${color green}${exec tail -v -n 12 /var/log/syslog 2> /dev/null}
]];

In order to have this second instance started on each Fluxbox session you open, insert the following two lines into your regular user's ~/.xsession file (between MANAGER and HANG POINT, right before the other conky invocation):

$ grep -A 1 'start log monitoring' ~/.xsession
# start log monitoring
sleep 1 && conky -c ~/.config/conky/tail.conf &

Desktop notifications

Install a desktop notification daemon:

# aptitude install notification-daemon

You probably want to have this daemon started on each Fluxbox session you open. In order to achieve this, just insert the following two lines into your regular user's ~/.xsession file (between MANAGER and HANG POINT):

$ grep -A 1 'start notification' .xsession
# start notification daemon
/usr/lib/notification-daemon/notification-daemon &

and the following two lines as well (after the HANG POINT):

$ grep -A 1 'stop notification' .xsession
# stop notification daemon
killall -TERM notification-daemon

You may also wish to install a command-line program to send desktop notifications:

# aptitude install libnotify-bin

An eye on software RAID

Install a little system tray icon to monitor software RAID changes:

# aptitude install systray-mdstat

If you want to have this notifier started on each Fluxbox session you open, insert the following two lines into your regular user's ~/.xsession file (between MANAGER and HANG POINT):

$ grep -A 1 'start mdstat notifier' ~/.xsession
# start mdstat notifier
systray-mdstat &

and the following two lines as well (after the HANG POINT):

$ grep -A 1 'stop mdstat notifier' ~/.xsession
# stop mdstat notifier
killall -TERM systray-mdstat