Enjoy Backtrack 4 even more...with Fluxbox!!!

If your here you obviously want to get your Flux on in Backtrack 4. When the developers didn't incorporate Fluxbox into Backtrack 4 I was bummed, but understood their reasoning. While most everyone is just fine using KDE as a window manager in Backtrack 4, I prefer a more light weight and fast window manager like Fluxbox to do my auditing and testing in. With all that being said, I'll now show you how to install Fluxbox in just a few easy steps.


Step 1.
Well the first thing your going to have to do is install Fluxbox, but first lets make sure your system is up to date. Open a shell and type:

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

Once the updates finish downloading and installing (if any) in the same shell type:

apt-get install fluxbox

This will install everything we need to start using Fluxbox.


Step 2.
Now, log out of your KDE session and in your tty1 session type:

echo "exec startfluxbox" > ~/.xinitrc

What this command does is add the line "exec startfluxbox" to your ~/.xinitrc file. This determines what window manager loads when you type "startx".


Step 3.
Now for the fun part, in your tty1 session type:

startx

Fluxbox, right? If you ever used Fluxbox before you know to access the menu you need to right click the desktop....but whats this!?! All your menu items....they're gone!?! Not to fear my fellow minimalists, I had a good couple weeks to type you guys up a whole custom Fluxbox menu especially for Backtrack 4. You can download the custom menu file here. When you are prompted to choose a location for the file to download to, download it to:

~/.fluxbox/

You will then be prompted again that a file named "menu" already exists, click replace to replace to old menu file with the new one. If it downloads to another location you need to move it to the ~/.fluxbox/ directory or it will not work! Alright, did you notice when you right click the desktop your menu is different? Everything from the KDE version of the menu is included and in the same spots, so you wont have to do any searching for tools.


Step 4.
But wait, nothing automatically starts up in Fluxbox like it did in KDE? There is a simple fix for that problem. Open a shell and type:

cd .fluxbox/ && nano startup

This will start a nano session. The Fluxbox startup script has lots of options you can mess around with, but we need to scroll down to the bottom until you see:

# Applications you want to start with fluxbox.
# MAKE SURE THAT APPS THAT KEEP RUNNING HAVE AN "&" AT THE END.
#
# unclutter -idle 2 &
# wmnd &
# wmsmixer -w &
# idesk &

What we want to do here is erase the four commented out entries and add our own, for instance:

# Applications you want to start with fluxbox.
# MAKE SURE THAT APPS THAT KEEP RUNNING HAVE AN "&" AT THE END.
#
wicd-client &
/opt/kde3/bin/kmix &
/opt/kde3/bin/kpowersave &

This will start three things when Fluxbox starts, Wicd Network Manager, Kmix, and Kpowersave.


And that's it! Aside from configuring Fluxbox how you like, your set. Pretty easy, right? You can now enjoy Backtrack 4 through a different, more light weight window manger.

Please post any feedback or questions you may have, thanks for reading!