 Hey everybody welcome back to the channel today I'm going to be taking a look at MX flux box now I've taken a look at the most recent version of MX Linux before and I was highly impressed by it I really really enjoy the MX tools that they provide and the extra effort they've they've seemed to put into Just kind of developing their own little ecosystem that doesn't really rely on anything directly from Debian and I think it's That effort to make their distro a little bit more unique that Kind of draws a lot of people to it. I mean there's a we make a lot of fun of Distro watch and all the spam bots that probably drive up the rankings or whatever But a lot of people do like MX Linux their premier ISO or whatever features xfce and a window manager called flux box And I never heard of flux box before so I took a first look at it and recorded a video and I smashed it to smithereens I just did I was I was very very negative on it. It was not a good experience and mostly And I'll show you what I mean here in a minute. Mostly. It was the looks that turned me away I'll admit that I'm a biased kind of guy. I'm a tiling window manager guy That's just how I prefer to do business So I'm not a big floating manager, you know I don't have a lot of interest in floating manager floating window managers So when I tried this I was like not only that it looks kind of meh, but it's also a floating window manager and It's just weird and I'm not exactly sure why it exists and it was like I said, I was completely negative on it So I was so negative on it. I haven't posted the video. I still like it's all done and that was like a week ago And I've just decided not to publish that one. I decided to do a kind of do a little bit of research over why flux box exists Who's it for? And I've decided to take another look now I don't know that I'm any more positive on it than I was when I did that first video But I do think that I don't hate it as much as I originally did So let's just let me show you what flux box looks looks like So this is flux box now. This is not what it looks like by default Honestly, I don't remember what it looks like by default. It does have this menu or this panel up here in this panel over here Uh Which I believe it's actually cutting off part of the panel. I wonder how I'd go about Getting all that back Let's try logging out and logging back in I'll admit that yeah, see there it was cutting some stuff off there I think that has to do with the xf or the virtual box Resizing thing I had none to do with mx This is how it's set up out of the box, but I've changed the theme. It's like a really ugly gray theme out of the box And it has a lot of available themes, but they're all flat So let me let's start off with the looks shall we just The thing that turned me off the most was the looks so let's let's start there. So there's actually a ton of little of Which one it's a style that I'm looking for so there's actually quite a few of them here that you can choose from There's a few mx specific ones I think this is the one that comes by default. This is a really weird gray one There are some that like this one here is not too bad And then there's a few that are like really weird like that one there's almost completely unusable because I mean you can't read that text like at all and a lot of them are Kind of like that. So I've kind of went through like all these and tried to Like that one's not too bad some of the like the ones that have a white background just aren't usable So we're just gonna go back to the one that I found up here. Which one was it was this one here. So The original though the first impressions on the looks just was not something that was All that impressive to me now Like I said, it's a floating window manager. So you are going to be using your mouse a lot. So that was another thing that If if you're what this reminds me quite a lot of is actually open box because Open box has the same kind of right-click menu thing and it's actually managed kind of the same way If you want to add things to this menu, you would go through and edit a configuration file And add things that way. I believe it's through something like xml I'm not actually sure I haven't actually tried it But it for sure is something that you can do through a configuration file. So and an open box Does the same thing now. This isn't as minimal as open box I don't even think open box comes with a bar out of the box I think you have to come up with a bar like tint two or something if you're going to use a bar With open box. This one here has obviously has panels and all that kind of stuff Now I believe these are like homegrown panels. These are something that are something that Flux the developers of flux box has actually gone through and coded themselves And the reason why I say that is because like this kind of resembles like a plank or something like that But it's not actually that because there's no other interact interaction with it other than You know clicking on it and launching something And I'm actually not sure This is not something that I've tested. So let's go to all apps Now, this is another thing. It's a little weird I believe this is d menu I'm not sure it could be rofi But I'm not actually won't let I think I should be able to find Where's that terminal terminal? Let's see if I can locate d menu No, it's it's rofi is what it is um So that that's for because it has a rofi theme seems here. Okay. Um, so that is rofi, but so If you've used those rofi before you know that it doesn't just list your applications. It lists every package on your System that's executable. So if you hit the super box They've gone you you have access here to pretty much everything But they've somehow managed it so that is just the packages That you can like actually run But because this is is Based on xfc. There's actually two ways Sometimes three ways to actually browse through your file. So you can actually use it this application finder as well now What I wanted to find out was like if let's say I open up this here This doesn't actually show up on this bar over here And i'm not actually sure how you'd go about adding something to this bar I'm assuming maybe it's through another configuration file. So let's actually so this comes with a Bunch of help files in different languages. So we'll open up the english one here What is flux? So it says flux box is a window manager That controls the placement and appearance of windows. That's what a window manager is for history and overview consult wikipedia Okay, so after a little bit more Research it does look like there's ways to go through and Customize their doc thing using something called doc maker. So if we appearance docs doc maker And this this tool allows you to create a new doc with one or more applications. So Let's edit the one that we have here This is the default doc and this would be how you go through and add an icon or an application now I'm not one to tell developers how to do something But I will say this We have developed ways of adding icons to docs That are easier than this Apparent four or five step process. This is a rigmarole if I've ever seen one. It's very very weird Now It's not a huge deal because you could go through and just create your icon doc in whatever way you wanted And it's just kind of set and forget Yes, it was probably a pain in the ass to set it up but Who cares you've only done it once and then you don't need to do it again And if you need it if you needed it added An icon or an application some other time it would just be a matter of editing like I'm doing here But it's just weird I mean, I could come back to that it's just A weird way of doing things. So because we know from this eye this panel up here That they can have panels that are aware of think windows that are open So this could be aware of what applications you have open And then you could just you know, right click on it and say pin to doc That's the way you would traditionally do something it's just That's just this is just one of the many things that are just weird Now one of the things about window managers is they're all weird. So there's nothing wrong With being a little odd This isn't for me So that's the reason why I've keep coming back to him saying like this is just not good but after A week or so of often I'm looking at other people using this I can see Some of the appeal first of all it's on mx linux so that you know that it's a running a very solid debian state It has a whole bunch of tools the mx tools that allow you to customize things and You know manage your system in ways that traditional debian really can't because it doesn't have access to those tools so You have that and flux box itself kind of grows on you after a little while because it's a Quaint it's it's eclectic, you know, it's uh It's that thing you want to use every once in a while just because It's different, you know, it's not something that's Exactly the same as everything else out there And that's what kind of where I've been for the last week like this is not My cup of tea, but it's kind of refreshing to use something that's not just a simple Standard tiling window manager that the same as all the other tiling window managers because I mean let's face it xfce and dwm and all these Tiling window managers other than the code that they're written in they're all basically the same. I mean They have the same options in the same features and There's a reason why guys like distro tube and And brody and all those guys go through and every time they switch to a different window manager They go through and make their window manager to look the same as all the other window managers It's because they can because that's basically all tiling window managers are exactly the same I mean They have the same features just it's a matter of implementation That's why window managers kind of like flux box and probably uh Open box appeal to some people because they're not the same and I think that's where I was Really having problems when I first looked at this because this is so different from the way that I usually do things It just an appeal to me so I've come around to it because it is Kind of weird in a refreshing way. Um Would I want to use it full time? No, I absolutely not. Um, this would drive me baddie this whole I mean just They're just so many little There's nothing particularly wrong with it like at all, but it's all the little irritations like adding a A menu item to the the dock or oh the odd use of the Super key the super key brings up Rofi apparently that's what this is and I'm so used to using the super key as a modifier key instead of just an actual key So like if I were like a gnomes user, I'd be perfectly happy Knowing that the the super key just brought up a menu because that's basically what it does in gnom. It brings up a The activities menu or whatever But I'm so far removed away from that. I mean Super menu in everything that I use be plasma or Um, or whatever it's a modifier key for me brings up other things So this would be another thing. It's just really weird and the discoverability of Keybindings in Fluxbox is also a little weird. So we know f4 brings up another terminal and f5 brings up Mx tools F3 brings up tunar f2 brings up application finder Which you can't get out of unless you exit out of f1 brings Up help just like I mean like you'd expect f6 is the application finder from xfc f7 but You know, I keep doing this But there's nowhere that it actually says this now I have not gone through the Documentation as much as I should have probably Because I'm sure that the key bindings are here somewhere So you can switch Workspaces by doing control plus f1 plus f2 so control f2 f3 controls the workspaces. So then we have a pager up here Now if I change this to a different To the traditional one Which eventually hopefully that'll come up it did so I like this traditional layout a little bit better Because the pager down here is kind of cool So it has it shows all of your workspaces You have three workspaces and then on in within that box of the workspace It shows all of your open windows So it could probably get quite messy because I have like a ton of things open here now But that's kind of cool. So you can change those key bindings by going to the Fluxbox configuration file, which I'll look here here in a minute Which I actually haven't looked at before or that I've looked at the menu one when I would like it actually is Just a list Of all the key bindings So in a lot so you can resize things using the alt key All right, so I keep learning something new here every every time I open up the help menu I or the help documentation. I learned something new. All right, so here's something I didn't see before you can use your own Keystroke combinations by going to menu Oops, I got too much stuff open here. We've got to close some of this stuff I'm so unused to having to click on the x to close something because You can't just hit queue Like I want to hit I just want to hit alt queue. No control queue control queue works Ah, see I learned something else new. That's the thing is it's just not discoverable. So let's Supposedly if I go to settings here in keys keyboard No configure keys Oh, you know this looks Correct me if I'm wrong, but this looks like exit xx hkd It's a little bit like sx hkd. So this is the list that I was actually looking for for ages trying to figure out where the Like the key bindings would be I mean, it's not the most readable thing ever Um So here we have the f1 through f6 keys volume keys hide menus A whole bunch of mouse keys which Those aren't key bindings if you have to use the mouse. Those aren't key bindings. So this is alt so mod 4 is control And here here. I thought mod 4 was alt Alt 4 no oops And all that did was change my setting on obs Okay. Yeah, all right This is what I'm talking about. It's a little weird and discover on this because I'm like almost positive that mod 4 Is alt Isn't it? I'm gonna have to look it up. We're gonna go this is This is the way videos work now. I don't know if you know this but we do research right on this on camera, you know Who needs to be prepared? I mean that would be just We'll let distro tube and brody and luke smith and all those guys those guys can be prepared I'll be the disorganized linux youtuber Okay, so that was a rabbit hole if I've ever been down one It was dark down there. I'm just saying Uh mod f4 from what I've been able to research is supposed to be the alt key So, uh But it doesn't work that way here because the mod the mod 4 key is I don't know if it's the reason why those keys don't work is because I have them set something else outside of virtual box That's possible. It's also so alt tab goes to different windows As it should Alt shift tab Yeah alt Three Just types in three Okay I'm done with that rabbit hole. I mean just it doesn't matter Uh flux box has been entertaining me now for a week and I'm just quite Interested in it and kind of done with it. So Why does flux box exist and I think their answer to that is that people like floating window managers Some people like floating window managers and there aren't a lot of them out there Now every tiling window manager has a floating mode dwm does i3 does bsp. WM does they all do Uh, awesome does obviously And there are but there are very actually it feels like there are much there are way fewer Truly focused floating manager Floating window managers out there. So there's open box There's flux box and there's I mean there's a few of them that are based on open box It's just it seems like tiling when managers have kind of taken over. So I think that that's the reason why it exists I think that it suits the aesthetic of the mx team Fairly well because they've gone through a kind of a minimalist kind of design In mx links as well now granted they in like xf the xfce version they go through and rely on the gtk3 themes and stuff guys so they haven't gone through and done their own theming and stuff Where they have in flux box it seems so I think that that's the reason why flux box exists is because you know It's a floating window manager and a lot of people like floating window managers Now that being said there are a lot of just little weird paper cutty things like the key bindings which is little really weird and fairly I mean you really have to kind of dig deep in order to find them because I missed that in the The documentation a couple times could have been through it And even once I found the the the list of them it was still kind of weird The menu system a little weird It's kind of a hodgepodge of stuff because you have rophy you have the xfce stuff you have the The menu that's like open box the open box menu. It's very I mean there's like four different menus and it's really weird Choose one, you know I'm not a big guy on multiple options for stuff. I want just give me an option I just want one. I don't I only need one or whatever it's It's like installing four different video Players on your iso it doesn't really Endear me to you because I need you to make a choice It's just those like those little piddly things that have bothered me a little bit my time with flux box The aesthetics have grown on me when I said when I At the beginning of this video I talked about how The aesthetics were the first things that kind of turned me off I'm much more I'm gonna say Tolerant of them now than I was before I guess just because I've used it a little bit longer And it's just not as bad As I originally thought It's the other stuff that kind of you know Pushes me away from it. So Let me know in the comments below if you're interested in using a floating window manager like flux box MX Linux itself remains awesome I didn't go much into the whole distro this time because I've done that before and I will link that video In the cards above if I haven't already you've probably seen it up there somewhere MX Linux is just really I mean it's just really good if you're gonna use a debian based distro I would either use this one or sparky I've looked at both of those recently and they're both these are both really good distros If you're going to be using a debian based distro I would even go as far as say is if if you've used a boon to and are kind of interested in looking for something That's not a boon to but still uses the same kind of package management system I would go through and try some of one of these other ones because they're really really good and they're really really stable and A lot of people Aren't really interested in the whole rolling release kind of thing So if you're gonna I mean especially MX Linux because it's built on debian stable. So anyways Thank you for watching make sure you follow us on twitter at twitter.com slash linux cast facebook.com slash linux cast You can also support it support us on patreon at patreon.com slash linux cast. I don't have that social media Slide or whatever that I was doing before I'm doing a little bit of revamping with the the graphics and stuff as you can tell along the bottom Just something different but Thank you for everybody who has supported us on patreon specifically I do still have this thing Which I need to revamp. So devon marcus americ. Thank you guys for supporting us. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time