I've been trying to see how I want to set up a distro. XFCE is nice, but lacks things like being able to drag on the desktop to select things, and a bluetooth setup GUI.

I've come to like the right click to get the application menu on XFCE. Do any other environments have this?

It's especially nice on two screens where I can choose which monitor I want windows to come up on initially.

I think many other window managers like Windowmaker, fluxbox, etc use similar right click application menus. They aren't full desktop environments, but you can tweak them to act like a desktop.

Yeah, but even XFCE just barely works as an environment for me. I have no bluetooth gui, and can't drag to select things on the desktop. I'd hate to get too far onto the lightweight side. I plan on asking about setting bluetooth up in XFCE later.

Thanks for the response.

If there's a bluetooth gui you like, you should be able to install it and run it on XFCE. The only danger is it will probably increase the RAM being used because any shared libraries will have to be loaded.

But you can run a desktop like KDE or Gnome and then replace the window manager with fluxbox, and I believe it will allow all the desktop things you want (drag select, etc), but then give you the right click menu. I could be wrong, it's been a long time since I bothered with this. I just run a slimmed down KDE.

EDIT: Here's a link about setting up a desktop environment on your own. It uses a lightweight WM (Openbox), roxfiler, and perlpanel to make a desktop environment. You should be able to modify it to your needs...

Very cool! I didn't understand the concept of window managers very well until I did this. So it's the window managers that give the pannels.
That makes me wonder if Nautalus is the one that went and make my XFCE desktop more like gnome. I know it can draw the desktop. I'll have to look into it.

Anyhow,

I've found that I can't run compiz and fluxbox at the same time. That means compiz is a window manager?

I just tried running compiz while using fluxbox, not just as a window manager but I booted into it, and crashed X.

I also killed compiz is gnome (killall compiz.real) and ran fluxbox --replace. No right click menu though.

Correct, compiz is a window manager, like fluxbox, which is why you can't run them together. Gnome's WM is typically Sawfish or Metacity, I believe. Here's another good site about window managers and desktops.

Panels are something different though. WM's just draw the window borders and allow you to move, resize, etc. Panels are little programs that give you an area to put little icons and widgets. I think KDE's panel is called kicker.

Then there's another technology that gives you the drag and drop type desktop icons. That's what rox-filer is. Not sure what KDE's or Gnome's equivalent is (maybe Konqueror and Nautilus?).

I think I've gotten close to having my cake, and eating it.

I've written down all the gnome apps I like so I can use them in XFCE. Finally I will have a bluetooth gui, not that it works anyway.

Anyhow.

I found that in gnome, if I kill the window manger, kill nautilus, and run xfdesktop then run compiz. I can get all the Ubuntu utilities, which are a little more polished. And the XFCE menu. However, the XFCE menu and the Gome settings menu are different. Do you think there is a way to "replace" or "favor" the ubuntu utilities over the XFCE ones? By utilities I'm talking about things like the autostarted applications, and screens, and display settings. Since I wouldn't use them all the time I'm no too worried about it.

Wow, this is a really cool crash course.

Maybe I should go try all this in KDE :P

Another thing.

Enlightenment is quite nice! Not as sophisticated a compiz, but If this was 5 years ago when I played with linux then, It would have been. This is light years beyond anything, in terms of the interface.

Not sure if this is what you are looking for or not.

http://www.xfce.org/documentation/4..../xfce4-session

Glad you're enjoying the trip! Linux can be a lot of fun to just fiddle around with. Tons of options, configurations, and applications to choose from.

When you say tons, your not kidding.

I like docks quite much. I've played with AWN and Kibba-dock. But I find that they can't only show me the windows open on which monitor like gnome-panel can. Even xfce4-panel couldn't. So I think I'm getting it narrowed down.

Four desktops and two monitors, very easy to misplace windows.

Not quite what I was thinking of.

Ubuntu has some applications that are very nice. Say I want to change the items that are autostarted. The gnome app has edit feature, an add feature, and a remove feature. the XFCE equivalent has an add feature and a remove feature. I would like to use the gnome one over the XFCE one. Except for the whole suite of "stock" tools. I suppose I could just go do them all individually.

The integrated desktop feature of Virtualbox sounds really cool. I need to get all this desktop configuration done and work on something else :P