Strange Fluxbox Menu Issue on Mageia 6

frankbell · 11-11-2018, 09:34 PM

I recently started using Fluxbox on my Mageia 6 laptop, because I really like Fluxbox.

When I first installed it from the Mageia repos, it presented me with a fully configured menu, as if the Flux "regen-menu" script had run at time on install. "Great!" I thought. "That's a nice touch."

I configured up the menu the way I like, with my favorite applications in the main panel beneath the categories (groupings of applications such as "Office," "Internet," etc.). You can see my typical Fluxbox menu arrangement at this link. (This is not from the Mageia box, but you get the idea.)

The next time I rebooted, the menu was back to the original format created by the regen menu script, without my customizations. I recustomized it and saved a copy as menu.bak. Now, when I reboot and this happens again, I copy ~/.fluxbox/menu.bak to ~/.fluxbox/menu and I have my customized menu back.

I reckon that I could write a little script to do the copying automatically on login, but what's bugging me is this: I have inspected the Fluxbox configuration files, both in /home/.fluxbox and in /usr/share/fluxbox and could find nothing that calls the regenerate menu script. (The /usr/share/fluxbox/menu file looked like the menu generated by the above-mentioned regen script.)

Friday, I renamed /usr/share/fluxbox/menu file to /usr/share/fluxbox/menu.bak, effectively removing it from play. I have not had a recurrence of the "overwritten menu" problem through a reboot and a logout/login since doing that.

Accordingly, it appears that, for some reason, my custom menu was being overwritten by the one in /usr/share/fluxbox, but I'm just guessing here. I have not found anything to account for the behavior.

Now, I've used Fluxbox with many distros and have never encountered anything like this before. My question is quite simple:

What is going on here and why?

Note: This is not an urgent problem in any way. It is merely a confession of my bafflement.

m.a.l.'s pa · 11-12-2018, 12:45 AM

I haven't seen anything like this before, either. My first thought was to check the session.menuFile line in the init file, but it sounds like you probably did that already. I've run Fluxbox in several different distros, but I've never used Mageia. Interesting little puzzle.

FredGSanford · 11-12-2018, 02:59 PM

I'm not certain but I think Mageia may customize their packages. Have you asked on their IRC channel or post in the forums?

lougavulin · 11-12-2018, 03:17 PM

That might help, from /usr/share/fluxbox/menu itself on a Slackware :

Code:

# Generated by fluxbox-generate_menu                                                                                                 
# 
# If you read this it means you want to edit this file manually, so here
# are some useful tips:
#
# - You can add your own menu-entries to ~/.fluxbox/usermenu
#
# - If you miss apps please let me know and I will add them for the next
#   release.
#
# - The -r option prevents removing of empty menu entries and lines which
#   makes things much more readable.
#
# - To prevent any other app from overwriting your menu
#   you can change the menu name in ~/.fluxbox/init to:
#     session.menuFile: ~/.fluxbox/my-menu

As you do your own whole menu, I guess go for the last point.

ondoho · 11-13-2018, 12:52 AM

^ that might help, but mystery not solved.
i wonder where this "regen-menu" comes from?
which package owns it?
my own fluxbox package doesn't have anything like that:

Code:

paql fluxbox|grep '/usr/bin/[a-z].*'
fluxbox /usr/bin/fbrun
fluxbox /usr/bin/fbsetbg
fluxbox /usr/bin/fbsetroot
fluxbox /usr/bin/fluxbox
fluxbox /usr/bin/fluxbox-generate_menu
fluxbox /usr/bin/fluxbox-remote
fluxbox /usr/bin/fluxbox-update_configs
fluxbox /usr/bin/startfluxbox

can you show us

Code:

which regen-menu
file $(which regen-menu)
cat $(which regen-menu)

???

frankbell · 11-13-2018, 09:59 PM

Thanks for the responses.

I posted the regenerate menu script to my LQ blog, because I know not all distros include it in their Fluxbox packages. It gives you a very nice starting point for customizing a menu that fits your system. Actually, I think ondoho listed the actual name of the file: /usr/bin/fluxbox-generate_menu.

"Regen Menu" is the menu item on Slackware's default Fluxbox menu that calls that script.

My own suspicion is Mageia has buried a call for that script somewhere many fathoms deep. next to Prospero's staff, as the script ran when I first started Fluxbox and gave me a menu customized to my install (a nice touch, as I said, and also something else I've not encountered elsewhere).

But I'll be darned if I've been able to find it! Anyway, I've found a work-around, but I'd still like to know what's going on under the hood. I guess that's the Slacker in me

.

As an aside, I will say that I have come to quite like Mageia; this is the first quirk I've found in it that I can describe as irritating.

Again, thank you.