Wouldn't it work if you just changed in ~/.fluxbox/init the session.menuFile line to point to /etc/X11/fluxbox/fluxbox-menu and then did "update-menus" as normal user?

"update-menus" run as root syncs /etc/X11/fluxbox/fluxbox-menu with the general debian menu (although this should happen automatically every time you install/remove apps) while "update-menus" run as normal user syncs your local fluxbox menu with the menu file that is specified in ~/.fuxbox/init .

[EDIT]
Or, actually, fluxbox has its own mechanism for refreshing its menu (just choose "Restart" from the fluxbox menu) while "update-menus" is a debian-specific command and it only refreshes fluxbox's menu if /etc/X11/fluxbox/fluxbox-menu has been specified as the session.menuFile in ~/.fluxbox/init .
[/EDIT]

AFAIK, you should also be able to further modify the individual menu entries by adding a special file for each entry you want to modify to /etc/menu/ and then running "update-menus" as root. For example, you can copy the menu file for some app from /usr/lib/menu/ to /etc/menu/ , then edit the file in /etc/menu/ to change its place in the menu order, and then run "update-menus" as root -- and the next time you open your fluxbox menu you should find the app from the new place you just specified. Or you can create new entries and new sub-menus. I haven't done this menu editing much myself (except for fixing some bugs where the original menu entry was bad and refused to launch the application) but in theory this should be possible. Just make sure that the syntax is correct (it's actually quite simple) -- "update-menus" will complain if the syntax is wrong or if you made typos.

"trial-and-error" is the only menu search function I know of. The fun of debian (and gnu/linux in general) is that there are way too many applications available. In time you'll find your personal favourites and in time you'll also learn to navigate the debian menu. Don't be afraid to experiment! Go through the menu and systematically launch every available application, one by one. This is the only sure way to learn what you've installed.

The other way is of course do a minimum install and only install what you need :P Just cancel the setup after it has rebooted and starts to ask you about packages.

yes this would work and since I'm the only user of that computer anyway I will probably do that. but I think the way I did it was the recommended procedure mentioned in the fluxbox manual. it makes backups easier of course if you place all personal files in your home directory.
/etc/fluxbox/fluxbox-menu is syncronized every time I run apt. but I can't update ~/.fluxbox/menu . I think first I need to tell update-menus where my menu file is before it can be updated?
thanks Dead Parrot for your post, that was great info.
stimpy

I'm kind of new to this stuff too, so hopefully I'll learn something from this thread, but although I don't know how to synchronize your menu with the system one, you can install your own menu "overrides" in /etc/menu in the debian menu system to do things like move your favorite apps up closer to the root menu so you don't have to drill down so far for them. Then the menu system will maintain them that way, and for all your installed (& supported) wm's. The problem is that it uses an arcane lanquage to do this, so it would be great if there was something like fluxconf that would operate on the Debian menu overrides instead.

I agree, wartstew. I've been at this for a while, but still find it confusing. Like you, I'd like to have the automatic Debian menu in place, but I'd also like to have my favourites up front.

I just installed pekwm about 3 days ago, it's pretty smooth and as fast as flubox and blackbox, and according to 'ps aux' it only uses 3.5 MB of RAM. It comes with no taskbar so you can install 'fbpanel' and place it in your ~/.xsession.

It works like blackbox, the main menu comes out of the side of the screen, it comes with Alt-Tab. It's not in the Debian repositories but there is a .deb at:

Dave's Place
http://chubby.dyndns.org/random_stuff.php

click on the Download link:
Download: pekwm-dev_20050227-1_i386.deb

and later on choose Dave's link. It will give you an error of some imlib dependency, install it with apt-get and try again,

#dpkg -i pek <TAB> <Enter>

voilá

#updatedb
$update-menus

To increase the menu font size, edit the file:

/usr/share/pekwm/themes/default/theme

and leave it looking like this:

$FONT = "Sans:size=10#Center#XFT"

According to ps aux icewm : 3.3 MB RAM.
Icewm : the most underrated WM. People laugh about it.
I may be dumb, I love it...

"I may be dumb, I love it..."

IceWM is my primary wm, my secondary is pekwm.

I've been using Fluxbox my own way for so long that I didn't realize that changes have been made. The Debian menu is much better than it used to be. Also, Fluxbox now has a startup feature. In ~/.fluxbox, there should be a file called, "apps." One can list various apps to automatically start when fluxbox is started. Mine looks like this:

I will be adding a few others.

I would still like to have a dual menu with my own favourites on top of the Debian automatic menu.